Concordance
by Hydraa
Summary: Taking up where the "Unity" arc ended, Chrno and Rosette have been through a lot, but more is to come. A series of interconnected stories in the Unity universe.
1. Introduction

**CONCORDANCE**

A Chrno Crusade story arc

_This is the start of a new arc called __**Concordance**__, taking place after the events of the arc __**Unity**_

_For those of you who are used to how fast I updated the previous arc, don't get too excited thinking this one will be the same. It will probably come much more slowly, provided it comes at all. My original writing comes first, though sometimes Rosette and Chrno start kicking up in the back of my head. Each chapter is essentially a story of its own though. They're just posted together to make it easier to find them and read them in order._

Hydraa


	2. Future Path

**FUTURE PATH**

by Hydraa

Chrno was dead.

He'd died during the night, unexpectedly going into shock as the legions they'd spent so long healing in him started to fail, sending the demon's heat rate racing, even while his lungs collapsed. Every organ in his body failed in cascading order, bursting inside of him as the legions exploded.

Rosette stood before her lover's open grave, her hands clasped until they hurt to try and stop their trembling. He'd died in her arms, convulsing and choking, looking for her to make it better. She hadn't. She hadn't even been able to get him to Shader in time, or understand what was happening to him.

It wasn't until the autopsy that they knew what had gone wrong.

Rosette turned away from the image of her beloved Chrno lying on that cold steel table. Father Remington was saying the prayers. Joshua and Azmaria stood near each other, staring at the grave with wet eyes. Even Satella had come with her butler Steiner while Shader stood across from Rosette, staring into the grave as if she didn't understand how this could have happened, or how she could have ended up as the last Sinner. All of the Order was there, all of them come to give their last respects.

Rosette wanted to scream at them to leave, to get out of there. They shouldn't be there. Chrno was lying with his head on a satin pillow inside a cherry wood coffin and he shouldn't be there. This was wrong! It was!

It was wrong because Chrno was still alive.

Rosette forced herself awake with a gasp, her heart pounding and her skin soaked with sweat. Blinking the nightmare away, she looked to her right.

Chrno lay beside her, turned on his side to face her, his hands curled limply by his head and his mouth open in that little kitten snore of his. He didn't wake when she did and she felt an instant's panic. Maybe it wasn't a nightmare again after all and there was something wrong with him, something missed during the two years he'd spent in Shader's tanks.

Impulsively, she lunged forward and grabbed him, yanking him against her in a tight hug. He made a muffled, almost frightened sound at what had to be a rude awakening, but he relaxed immediately as she stroked his back, her face buried against his clean-smelling, lavender hair.

"Another nightmare?" he asked. His voice sounded muffled.

Rosette didn't answer, just stroking him and letting the feel and smell of him wear away at the images in her head.

Chrno waited for a moment and then sighed, the sigh turning into a yawn. He snaked his own arms around her and hugged her, his palms flat and warm against her back.

"I'm not going anywhere," he pointed out.

"I know," Rosette said. She didn't let go though and eventually he fell asleep again, his soft snore starting up against her throat. Rosette listened to that sound and let the reassurance of it eventually soothe her back into sleep as well.

---000---

Chrno and Rosette both yawned at the same time, unexpectedly competing to see who could bear the most teeth. Coming up to the table with his own breakfast, Remington's laugh turned into a yawn as well.

"Don't do that to me." He sat down, smiling at the two. Rosette looked like she'd needed to be dragged out of bed – and probably had – while Chrno had dark circles under his eyes. "Not sleeping well?" he asked.

Half muddled, Chrno shook his head, his loose hair flying, and bent to his cereal with a tired sigh. Rosette leaned on her hand and looked at Remington for a long moment before she answered. It probably took her that long to understand the question, Ewan thought in amusement.

"Nope," she said.

"Maybe you both should try actually _sleeping_ in bed," he teased.

That one got through their fuzz faster. Chrno blushed red while Rosette glared. "Hey! I just didn't sleep well, okay?"

Ewan cocked a thumb at Chrno. "And him?"

"Well, he didn't sleep well neither. We didn't do nothing!"

"I was sleeping," Chrno muttered. "I _was_ sleeping quite well." Rosette turned her glare on the demon instead.

Knowing what he did about the pair, Remington made a guess. "Are you having bad dreams, Rosette?"

"No," she said.

"Every night," Chrno disagreed. Rosette's glare deepened. "What?"

Ewan looked at the two with fond humour. They'd always amused him, even while they drove his predecessor to distraction. More, they delighted him. A demon and a nun. Actually, they were both demons now, thanks to Chrno turning Rosette into one to save her from the contract she'd made with him. Her life energy to sustain him where his broken horns no longer could, his power to help her search for her missing brother. Ewan didn't think there was any other demon in the world that would have fought so hard to keep his contractor alive as Chrno. If he hadn't, Rosette would have long been dead by now, and Chrno as well, since without her he had no energy to live off of. Self-survival hadn't been Chrno's motivation though. He loved Rosette, truly loved her, and no other demon would ever have been able to say that.

Granted, Chrno was a very unique sort of demon, demonstrated by the ebony and garnet cross currently hanging around his neck. God himself had accepted Chrno into his house. A demon, consecrated to the Lord.

That made one miracle, Ewan thought idly. Defeating Aion and his attempt to destroy the world could be seen as two. What would happen if there were three?

He pushed the thought away. There were far too many priests even now who would rather Chrno had never woken from his coma. That was easier.

It certainly wouldn't have been easier for Rosette, he thought, watching her try not to fall face first into her food while she ate. Her hair dragged into it anyway and Chrno patiently pulled it away, his gaze fond. Rosette had no idea how much interference Remington had been running on her behalf during the last two years. She was the absolute best Militia fighter they had, able to use the demons' powers without being affected by them. She could take the water and wine, could bathe in holy water and say the prayers. She could also change her shape and have feathered angel wings. She was the holy one, they argued. Born of woman, blessed with a soul, sworn to God.

_Not_ sworn to God, he amended, and there lay the need for interference. While every single girl in Rosette's class had taken the oaths to become full nuns, Rosette had not. While Chrno slept, Remington let her avoid the topic, just as Kate had before him, but the pressure being brought on him to finally force the issue was immense. Now that Chrno was awake again, it was even worse. Remington tried to resist, but in the eyes of his superiors, Rosette was rutting with a demon and that sin would corrupt her. If she was to be God's chosen, she had to be His alone. Chrno would have his part to play in the church, of course, but it should be nowhere near Rosette Christopher's bed.

Ewan sighed. Chrno loved Rosette. He had loved Mary before her as well. Had Mary forseen what would happen to Chrno after she died? Ewan had wondered that many times, but Mary's writings in the church had never been about herself or anything connected to her, and once she left with Chrno, she hadn't written anything. Not about her death, not about his fifty year sleep in her tomb, not about Rosette, the apostles, and the salvation of the world.

He shook his head. Ultimately, none of that mattered now. Remington had his not-quite-orders. Talk to Rosette. Convince her to make the final oaths to the church and become a full nun of the Order, with all that entailed.

Chrno looked at him sleepily. "You look unhappy, Father."

Remington forced a smile. "Just business, Chrno." He turned to Rosette. "Rosette, while Chrno is getting his astral, can you come to my office? There's something I need to talk to you about."

Rosette made a noncommittal grunting sound. "I'll get her there," Chrno promised. He didn't look at all bothered that he hadn't been asked to come himself.

"Thanks, Chrno," Remington told him and left, no longer hungry. This would be hard enough without having to face both of them at the same time.

---000---

After drinking nearly a pot of coffee by herself, Rosette went into Remington's office with the conviction that she should be able to stay awake through whatever it was he wanted to talk to her about.

She needn't have worried.

"Rosette," he sighed, standing and looking out the window with his hands clasped behind his back. "Thanks for coming. There's something I need to talk to you about."

"Yes?" she asked, sinking into one of the chairs before his desk. Kate had never let Rosette sit when it had been her office.

Remington sighed again. "This isn't easy, so I'll just come out with it. You've been here since you were twelve. You're nineteen now. The time has come where the high Council members want you to swear your oaths to the Order and become a full nun."

Rosette blinked. "What?"

He turned around. "I think you understand what I'm saying, Rosette. They want you to swear the oaths."

Rosette's teeth started to grind, remembering some oaths Chrno had been forced to swear many years before. The oaths they were talking about for her weren't magically imposed to stop disobedience, but essentially it came down to the same thing. Control. The church wanted to control her, even after everything she'd done for them.

"What do you want?" she managed to spit out. "Do you want me swearing these oaths too? Is that why you're asking?"

Remington frowned, but he didn't back down. He never did. "I think what you do is and should be your decision, but I do think you need to decide _something_. You can't stay in limbo the way you are forever. I've let you put it off for too long as it is." He looked out the window again, in the direction of the lab where Chrno would be receiving his astral infusion from Shader. "I didn't want to bring it up while things were still undecided though."

Meaning Chrno. What would be her answer to this question if Chrno had died? Would she have sworn the oaths and become a complete member of the clergy? A full sister? Rosette suspected that she would have. As it was, there was really only one thing keeping her from doing so now.

Chrno. To swear herself fully to the church would mean that she would also have to swear herself to a life of complete celibacy. No more Chrno. No more warm kisses or warmer hands, no more embraces and love. All for a church that had saved her life, and her brother's, and given her purpose.

Rosette bit her lip. "I can't do it, Father," she admitted. "I _can't_ leave Chrno."

"I think I might have thought less of you if you had," he said. He smiled at her, though it was a little strained. Imagining what he was probably going to be put through when he reported in just made her angry all over again. "Take some time. Talk to Chrno. Decide what it is that you _do_ want to do, all right? I'll support you no matter what it is."

He headed back towards his desk. He hadn't dismissed her the way Kate would have done, and Rosette knew he'd talk all day if that was what she needed, but his desk was covered in paperwork and she knew he'd have to do some quick dancing in his support. The anger rose a third time.

"Thank you, Father," she said instead and went out.

---000---

Shader's laboratory was a square, white building covered with restricted signs. It had become a place of legend at the convent, with no one really sure what went on inside it and only a few people actually allowed inside.

As Shader's master and as head of the First Class Militia Unit of the New York branch, Rosette was. Still steaming, though she didn't blame Father Remington, Rosette stormed inside and through the maze of cables and machinery that filled the place. Shader had almost unconditional rights to make whatever she wanted, though many of her inventions left people wondering if she'd been into the catnip again. Others looked as though they'd change the face of the world. The Order had experimentally patented a few and now they had the money to do a lot of things they hadn't before.

Shader didn't belong to the church, Rosette mused suddenly. The cat demon belonged to _her_. If events reached the point where she and Chrno had to leave, Shader would go with them. Shader, with all her genius and inventions and all the money those inventions were worth. They'd be rich. Beyond rich.

Rosette started to drool.

Seated on a strangely conformed chair that made him brace his chest against a pillowed rest, Chrno looked over at her idly. He was naked from the waist up, his back covered by a harness that held twenty or more foot long needles. They in turn led to wires that connected him to a humming machine. The whole contraption glowed as the astral generated by the machine fed into the demon's body. It was Shader's favourite toy, though not one that she had invented herself. It was the brainchild of the Elder, though Shader had improved on it a great deal from the square box it used to be. Originally, the recipient had the needles inserted into their spine to receive the astral, which was understandably painful. Chrno needed somewhat longer treatments with the harness arrangement, but it definitely hurt less to do it.

An hour a day in the machine, more if he really exerted himself. It was a terrible weakness, but Rosette had only to remember him collapsed on the floor with dead legions oozing out of his nose and mouth to remind her that anything which kept him healthy wasn't so bad.

Chrno smiled as he recognized the greedy look in her eyes. He had his arms folded on the top of the chair he was sitting on and his head laid across them. He looked sleepy but content. "What is it?" he asked.

Rosette wiped the drool away. "Nothing."

"Of course not," he murmured and closed his eyes.

Rosette walked over and ran a hand through his hair, her lover tilting his head so that she could caress his ear. The feel of the astral was very pleasurable for him and she indulged in a few wicked thoughts about what they might be able to do with that machine if Shader weren't around and if the cat demon didn't record everything that happened in the building. That reminded her of what Remington had told her and the anger started up again, though it didn't last long. She did need to decide what to do. It wasn't fair to the beautiful creature she was in love with to stay in limbo the way she had been. Ultimately, it wasn't fair to her either. Only, she didn't know what to do. Like always, she wanted it all and the Order was her home. Maybe Chrno would have more insights. He was older, after all.

"I talked to Remington," she told him. His eyes opened again to look at her, soft and red, slitted in a way a human's eyes would never be, along with his lavender hair and the points at the top of his rounded ears. "He said that the council wants me to take the oaths to be a nun."

"Oh," Chrno said. He knew as well as she did what those oaths were. Obedience, poverty, chastity. He sat up, pushing away from the padded rest and making Shader screech from the other side of the room that he was ruining the connections. Chrno laid flat again. "What are you doing to do?"

She frowned. "Not swear them," she said. "Of course."

"There's nothing stopping you," he pointed out.

Rosette glared at him. "Are you saying you don't want to have sex with me anymore?"

He winced, aware he was treading dangerously. "No. But I won't stop you from doing anything that's important to you. Being a Sister matters to you, doesn't it?"

She sagged and went to drag a chair over to sit beside him. "It does," she admitted as she sank onto its hard seat. "But you do too. I can't imagine not having you anymore."

"You'll always have me."

She glared. "Okay, let me clarify. I can't imagine not getting all sweaty and hot with you and banging the headboard of the bed through the wall while I scream my head off." He blushed.

"I wanna record that!" Shader shouted from somewhere in the maze.

"SHUT UP!" Rosette shouted.

Chrno sighed and reached out to lay a hand on the back of hers. "I can't imagine not making love to you either, but-"

Deliberately, Rosette took his hand and pressed it against the swell of her breast.

"Okay," he said after a minute. "No oaths. What are the other options?"

"I don't know," she shrugged. "I don't know that we'll get other options. Father Remington said he'll support us, but he's the youngest head of any of the Orders. I know he gets overruled a lot. He'd have had to be just to bring this up."

"They can't make you do anything," Chrno pointed out. "You're still mostly human. They can't even bind you. I think."

"Don't worry, I don't plan to get caught in any circles."

He smiled and she groaned, rubbing a hand over her face. "It's not fair. I don't want to have to deal with all of this."

"So what do you want? Forget titles and oaths. What do you want to do with your life?"

She shrugged. "I want to be with you. I want to live here, with my brother and Azmaria. I want to protect people from demons that get out of control."

"Sounds simple enough," Chrno agreed. "That's what I want to do too."

"Yeah, but no one's asking you to join the clergy."

"True," he agreed meaningfully. "and they're letting me do it anyway."

Rosette thought that through, blinking. It was true. Chrno had to follow the rules of the laity, essentially helping where he could and serving the church without taking any of the oaths. Lots of people did that. Some did it formally.

Slowly, she started to smile. What a wonderful idea.

---000---

"So you're going to serve the church as a member of the laity?" Remington asked, sitting behind his desk with his hands folded atop it. He looked at Rosette with interest, though inside he was laughing, and, just a bit, cringing at the thought of how his superiors would react to this. It was the only real solution though, if Rosette was going to remain true to herself.

"You bet, Father," Rosette agreed. "I'll lead the militia and help hunt demons. I'm good at that. Just one of Shader's patents will more than pay for my room and board. But I won't take the oaths."

"Will you take off the headdress?" he asked her.

Rosette reached up to touch the blue and white headdress she wore instead of the wimple of a nun. It and the blue nun's uniform were as far towards decorum as she'd ever gone, though Ewan doubted any nun wore the sides slit up quite so high. Granted, few of them ended up in close quarters combat either.

"No," she said slowly. "I'm used to it. I serve the church. I just… belong to more than God." She frowned. "Does that make sense?"

"I'm sure God doesn't mind sharing. I think you've come up with a very good solution." He tilted his head to one side. "What if the senior council doesn't agree?"

Her face turned hard. "They don't have a choice. If they push it, I'll leave and I'll take Chrno and Shader with me."

"And be a bounty hunter like Satella Harvenheit?" he suggested.

"Yeah!"

"All right then," Ewan agreed as he leaned back in his chair. He'd tell the council that. He'd tell them all sorts of things that Rosette probably hadn't thought of. She was an asset even more than a friend. They needed her in the Order with all the changes threatening in the world with the 1930s just around the corner and a willing layman was far more useful than an unwilling nun.

Rosette had never had the soul of a nun anyway. She was far too much the warrior for that. She was God's sword, not his lamb.

"Welcome to the Magdalene Order, Layman Rosette," he told her formally and she couldn't quite hide her grin. It was a good solution indeed.


	3. Assault

**ASSAULT**

By Hydraa

Despite all the times he'd been furious with him and wished he were dead, or even the times he'd tried to kill him himself, Aion had actually been grief-stricken when Chrno finally died.

He'd felt it, but there had been nothing he could do. Healed unintentionally by acolytes but still so weak, with no source of astral except for a grievously wounded Genai, Aion hadn't been able to go to his broken bird's rescue. He'd only been able to feel Chrno weaken and finally slip away, vanishing from the world between one heartbeat and the next. Already torn by the deaths of Viede and Fiore and the theft of Shader and Joshua, Aion had felt destroyed.

He recovered, of course. Aion always recovered and always would. A thousand of his followers had died when they first broke free of Pandemonium. If he could handle that, he could handle anything. So long as he had even a single follower, he could recover.

Genai wasn't really enough though, not after Aion had _had_ thousands. Aion cared for Genai, nursed him back to health for more than the reason that Genai was his only power source. The power stones Fiore used to make for him were gone, with no way for him to gather more. His sword, with his horns forming the hilt was lost, taken by the Magdalene Order as a trophy. A king with a kingdom of one, Aion had only existed, living each day with no more goal to strive for.

And then Chrno woke up.

Aion had felt it, so clearly there could be no doubt. Between one moment and the next, Chrno's essence had been back there in his mind, and with the barely felt, hard to grasp triumph he felt from Shader, Aion finally understood.

Chrno hadn't died after all. He'd come close no doubt, but Shader had put him in her healing tanks and left him there for years, forcing Aion to think his broken bird was gone forever. How bad had Chrno's wounds been? Aion hadn't known whether to kiss Shader or kill her for making him suffer so.

Cautious but greedy, Aion had drunk deep of Genai's energy and gone to see for himself, teleporting from their hiding place to the very doorstep of the Order. With the old wards broken, the nuns and priests didn't know about his presence as he slunk through their lawns and up to a small cottage he'd seen before.

He saw Chrno reunited with the demon girl Rosette, and cursed that he hadn't got there sooner to take mastery of Chrno himself. Still, he and Chrno were brothers and there was no way for Chrno to lock Aion out completely. Aion felt his brother's joy and revelled in it, even as he raged. He'd thought Chrno was dead, grieved for him, and Aion was angry.

He slipped away to plan his vengeance, and a way to slake the desperate hunger he had for demon subordinates that always harboured in his soul.

--000--

The bells peeled out, ringing a song that had nothing to do with worship. Summoned from their regular duties, the priests and nuns of the militia ran out of the buildings, carrying arms as they headed for the vehicles that would transport them. The bells rang out a four toned cry. A major incursion had been found.

Rosette ran at their front, easily outdistancing her fully human troops as she raced for the first of the cars with a machine gun in one hand and a pistol in the other. For all her demon nature, she still preferred regular weaponry. There was nothing else quite like a machine that could hurl a staccato of sacreds and gospels at her enemy.

Despite her speed, boot heels sounded at her side as Chrno ran up by her side in his adult form. Rosette's lips firmed.

"You're not coming."

He barely glanced at her. "Yes I am."

Her frown deepened even further. He'd been awake for barely four days. He hadn't even tried to change shape or use his powers. Shader had made it clear. She'd let him out early. Only a few months mind, but he wasn't at full power. His legions were still subject to strain.

Rosette wasn't going to take the slightest chance of that happening.

"You're not coming!" she shouted, skidding to a halt in the middle of the sidewalk. "Is that clear?"

Chrno stopped as well, glaring at her stubbornly. "If you wanted to give me orders, you shouldn't have freed me from your control."

Maybe she shouldn't have, Rosette thought as she ground her teeth, but she had. Despite his natural submissiveness, Chrno could choose to disobey her if he wanted to now. He just wasn't supposed to bother.

"Don't argue with me, Chrno," she snapped, ignoring how everyone else was catching up now. "Shader hasn't cleared you for combat. I won't risk you getting hurt."

"And I won't let you get into trouble without me."

Joshua trotted up with the other militia, slowing with them to watch. "Can you feel the love?" he smiled.

"Joshua, don't," Azmaria hushed, looking upset.

Rosette didn't care. This was Chrno. She'd spent two years staring through a glass tube at him floating in a bunch of goo, looking to see if he'd moved even the slightest. She still had nightmares of something going wrong and him ending up back there, or worse. To see him in combat again, to see anything at all trying to hurt him…

"You're not coming," she whispered again. "I won't risk you. Not like this. Not again. I _can't _do it again. Do you understand that?"

Chrno hesitated, staring at her.

"Don't come, Chrno," she whispered. "Please don't come. If you love me, stay here where it's safe. Just until I can handle the thought of risking you again."

Chrno's shoulders sagged, a look of misery on his face. "I'm sorry," he told her. "I keep forgetting what it must have been like for you."

Rosette stepped forward and rose up on her toes to kiss his cheek. "We'll be back in a few hours. I promise."

Chrno touched her cheek with the back of his hand and gave her a small smile. "Okay."

Rosette beamed at him and ran past, running the rest of the way to the cars. "Hurry up!" she shouted to the rest of the militia. They joined her, Joshua and Azmaria giving Chrno apologetic looks as they passed.

Chrno watched them go, peeling out of the Order's main gate at high speed.

"Damn," he said.

--000--

For a while, Chrno wandered around the Order's grounds, too restless to return to the cottage. They were fairly extensive and he hadn't actually seen them in years, but that got boring after a while. Most of the Order was away with Rosette and those who didn't fight were mostly away from the grounds, working at different locations throughout the city. The place was almost deserted as a result.

Remington would be around though, probably locked in his office and wanting some company. Chrno still couldn't really believe that Ewan Remington was in charge of this place, but no one had seen fit to replace him during the last two years, so he had to be doing a good job.

Chrno cut between two buildings, headed for the main administration building where Remington would be. That took him past the lab where Shader was, but he wasn't really feeling up to her usual excitement levels. He was low on astral, another good reason for him not to go with Rosette, he supposed, but he didn't want to have Shader gushing over him while he was in a bad mood. So long as he got his astral before Rosette returned, he could wait on visiting Shader.

Chrno passed between the buildings, went across the front lawn of the lab, and as he started around the back corner, a sharp, barbed demon tail into the front of his throat and through his spine.

Chrno's legs went out from under him like a marionette with no more strings. His knees buckled and he went down onto them, gagging with his arms just as limp and useless at his sides. He would have fallen farther, but the tail held him up, the blood that poured out of his throat and mouth flowing down its length, a pretty red against the white.

Aion came around the corner, his wings furled at his side and the small glasses he wore perched on his nose as he looked down at Chrno appraisingly. "Paralyzed?" he asked. "Good. I'm quite angry with you, but I don't want you in any pain. Or fighting back. I've found I really missed you these last few years." He knelt down and looked at Chrno more closely. Chrno tried to say something, but he couldn't get any words out. Aion smiled at him, that smile Chrno had once taken comfort from and then learned to fear. "Try to relax, little bird. You're taking a nap no matter what you do."

He laid Chrno down, easing him down onto his side on the grass. Chrno tried to speak, tried to scream for help or do anything, but he couldn't. He couldn't even get his legions to obey him. Sluggish and sleepy after two years of torpor, they barely responded, moving reluctantly towards the hole in his throat.

Before they could start to work, Aion brushed Chrno's hair out of his face, exposing his temple, and brought the edge of his hand down hard on the spot where Chrno's broken horns were in his demon form.

Chrno didn't know anything after that.

--000--

That had been easy. Aion had always approved of surprise attacks, especially against his little brother. Even after all the times Aion had ambushed him, Chrno didn't seem capable of becoming paranoid. It was really rather charming.

Aion checked the other demon over carefully. He hadn't wanted to harm him, but he hadn't wanted to fight Chrno either. The last thing he needed was the Order getting wise to his presence. The militia and that bitch Rosette were gone chasing Genai's distraction, but that bastard priest Remington was still around. That was one human Aion didn't want to fight at all.

He just wanted his brother back, and for that, he needed to be left alone for a while. Without Shader, he didn't have access to any of the technology he used to and stealing Chrno's will back from Rosette wasn't going to be easy. In fact, Aion rather thought it would be impossible without a little honest cheating. The Order had the technology he needed, courtesy of Shader, so Aion was going to borrow it for a while.

Carefully, Aion lifted the other demon up and over one shoulder, grimacing as he felt Chrno's blood soak into the white leather he wore across his back. It was always such a pain to keep it clean. Ears pricked for anyone who might see him, he headed back the way Chrno had come and went to the low white building that he'd learned was Shader's lab.

He was still mad at the cat demon as well, but he knew her betrayal wasn't her fault. Aion had stolen her from Pandemonium. He should have taken better steps to make sure no one else could steal her from him.

Of all of them, it was Rosette Christopher that Aion was angriest at.

Aion shoved the door to the lab open and strode into a morass of equipment and wires that was undeniably Shader. "Shader!" he shouted, putting all the force of his will into his voice. "Shader, come to me!"

There was nothing, the lab silent and deserted.

"SHADER!" he bellowed.

Nothing. "Damn," Aion muttered at last. This would have been a lot easier with Shader's help. In fact, his plan had included re-subsuming Shader under his control and using her to help gain control of Chrno, then leaving with both of them. As far as he'd been able to tell, she rarely left her lab, so where was she?

Right now, it didn't matter, because he couldn't wait. Aion made his way through the lab, looking around. He was familiar with Shader's work and he recognized most of the pieces he saw. The one he specifically wanted was at the centre of the lab and Aion went towards it, grabbing a wheeled steel table as he did. Dragging it up to the machine he wanted, he dumped Chrno onto his back on top of it. The unconscious demon sprawled bonelessly along the table, blood gleaming on his throat and shirt as though he'd dipped them both in dye. His head fell sideways, turned towards the door and the freedom he wasn't going to get. Aion smirked and looked at the machine he'd chosen.

It was Shader's healing tank, a large central machine with legion-filled sleeping tubes pronging out from it at floor level. It could be used for repairing damage, but also for affecting things like memory. Chrno wouldn't have any need to obey Rosette Christopher if he didn't remember her. He'd go back to old patterns then and that meant Aion.

Aion studied the controls, working cautiously but quickly. He'd always bragged that he didn't need to know how Shader's machines worked, but he'd watched her use them many times and he knew the fundamentals. She'd added something to this one though, a second machine hooked up to the tank that hadn't been there the last time Aion saw it. He looked at the label placed neatly on the side and started to grin. It read _astral generator_.

"Oh, I do so hope that means what I think it means," he purred. If Shader had finally figured out that little secret, Aion wouldn't need to worry about power gems and horns ever again.

For now though, first things first. Get Chrno's mind wiped before he woke up. Chrno could help him haul the machine out then, since it didn't look to be a simple job. Aion flipped the switch to turn the tank on, adjusted the controls…

…And all of the power went out in the entire lab.

"Damnit!" he swore and went to find the switchbox.

--000--

Shader hadn't gone out. She hadn't needed to go anywhere since it wasn't mealtime yet and even if it was, she often forgot. Rosette usually had to come looking for her to remind her to eat when she got working.

She hadn't really been working this time though, just sitting and playing with the computer, cleaning out old files and generally doing some housekeeping. The perimeter alarm had beeped and she'd looked up at the monitors set up over her desk to see Aion walking towards the lab, Chrno slung unconscious over his shoulder.

Shader had shrieked so loudly she was lucky he hadn't heard her from outside. While Aion had been confident in his superiority as master, Rosette hadn't been so arrogant and she'd spent a lot of time over the last two years ensuring her cat demon would keep her independence. Her ears flat and her tail puffed to twice its size, Shader hit the password lock on the computer and dove for the floor, ducking down just in time not to be spotted as Aion kicked the door open and came in.

"Shader!" he shouted. "Shader, come to me!"

Shader heard him where she huddled under her desk, even with her hands pressed over her ears, and she felt the absolute _demand_ in that voice. Come, obey, submit. She whined, and suddenly Rosette's voice was in her head, repeating the words again that the woman had been repeating every week for two years, at first despite Shader's confusion and later with her full agreement.

_"You will be your own person. You will never bend to the will of anyone who gives you no choice. You will be your own person."_

"I will be my own person," Shader whimpered and shook in her hiding place.

"SHADER!"

"I will be my own person! I will be my own person!" She wanted to cry, but he might hear her, might have heard her whispering to herself already.

_"Be brave," _Rosette told her.

Be brave. Her ears still flat, Shader peeked out from under the desk and around the corner, where she had a clear view of Aion at the end of a makeshift corridor formed of equipment and machinery. She could see Chrno as well, lying with his head turned away from her on one of the metal tables with the raised edges that she used for dissecting dead demons. Shader bit her lip. He wasn't recovered nearly enough for this. He needed her help, but she was just a tech demon. What was she supposed to do?

She looked back at Aion and saw him studying the legion tanks. Suddenly, Shader knew what he was up to; the same thing he'd wanted her to do two years before. He wanted to put Chrno in the tank and erase his memory.

Rosette would absolutely _kill_ her if she let that happen.

How to stop him? How to stop him? Would screaming in terror and running away as fast as she could work? Probably not. How about leaping up and letting him have it with a gatling gun loaded with incendiary rounds? Nope. It was on the other side of the lab and Rosette had taken all her ammo. Shader watched Aion for a moment longer, his heart pounding and wanting nothing more than to stay where she was. Chrno needed her though. She _had_ to help him.

Aion bent over the astral generator and Shader moved, her tail tucked firmly between her legs as she crawled out from under the desk and away down the corridor as quickly as she could. Ducking under a generator, she scurried on all fours along a cross alley, over a cable half a foot thick, and reached the wall where the breaker panel for the lab was. Somewhere behind her, she could hear Aion trying to figure out the controls for the legion tank. Kneeling on the floor, Shader reached up and opened the panel, barely able to reach it, and hit the master breaker.

The lights went out. While she heard Aion swearing in the darkness, Shader nearly ran on her hands and knees back into the maze of equipment, this time headed for the other side of the building while she heard Aion stumble his way towards the wall. She actually passed behind him at one point, biting into her lip to keep from squealing as she saw his shadow move in the darkness.

On the wall across from the breaker panel, a phone was hanging, there in case someone really needed to get hold of her, but away from her desk so that it wouldn't annoy her too much. Shader took it off the hook and dialled a number as quietly as she could, praying all the while that he'd be there. She was pretty sure he was supposed to be there.

_"Father Remington."_

"Help!" Shader whispered. "He's here! Oh help!"

_"Shader? Who's there?"_

"Aion!"

--000--

Remington had been having a boring day of paperwork and finances, the sort he hated with an outright passion. Now he found himself rather missing it as he sprinted across the lawn, the cross that formed the hilt of his sword in his hand.

He couldn't call anyone to help on this. The militia weren't back and the only other people still at the Order weren't fighters. He couldn't in good conscience involve the novices in training in this sort of thing. Sure, Rosette had done so at an even younger age than many of the girls who'd come to the Order, but she was unique in just about every way. Any of the novices now would die against Aion.

Aion. Remington had known the demon wasn't dead, not the way he'd escaped the hospital after Joshua and Azmaria unintentionally healed him. Remington had hoped though, he really had. Aion didn't have any sources of astral anymore, after all, not without Fiore to make power gems for him and without his sword, which had his horns built into the hilt. Both gave him sources of astral, as had his followers. Now he had nothing.

Why was he here? Ewan didn't really have to guess. Aion had come for Chrno.

Ewan reached the lab and slowed to a cautious walk as he went towards the door, his breathing slow and even. He'd forced himself to stay in shape, even after he took on Kate's old job. The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war, he'd always been told. It was true and Ewan loosened his collar as he slid up to the door.

--000--

Inside, Aion finally found the breaker panel and felt down the switches until he found the one that had tripped. He flipped it back on and grinned as the lights came back on. "That's…"

He started to turn around and stopped, staring at a case on the wall only a few feet from the breaker panel. It was fronted with glass and large, the interior filled with a variety of swords, a cane with a duck for the handle, and a golf club. Aion didn't pay attention to any of those. Midway to the side of the main display, as though it didn't deserve to be central, was a long, slim sword with ivory white horns forming the guard of the hilt.

"Yes!" he crowed and yanked the door open, breaking the lock with a bang. This outing was turning into a treasure trove of rewards. First Chrno, then a machine that produces astral, now his sword and horns. Aion took the weapon down and felt astral flow into him. The horns in the hilt weren't quite as productive as they had been when he wore them, no longer drawing on demand, but they still stored astral at a steady rate and he could draw on it whenever he needed to. "Yes," he breathed again, caressing them.

A squeal that sounded almost like "oh shit!' echoed from somewhere in the lab.

Aion turned, hissing.

The door burst open and Aion saw a flash of blue and gold, as well as the glow of a sword blade that was nearly a foot thick and nearly eight feet long. Aion saw blond hair and then the priest was in the maze, probably with a great deal more knowledge of it than Aion.

"Oh, shit," he swore himself.

The last thing Aion wanted was a fight with Father Ewan Remington in this chaos of a disaster zone. He wanted that astral generator though, and he wanted Chrno. The demon was still unconscious, his blood pooling in the autopsy table he'd been dumped onto. At least it didn't look like Aion would have to fight _him_.

"Aion!" Remington shouted from somewhere to his right. "Surrender!"

"Not fucking likely!" Aion shouted back, moving cautiously out into the centre of the maze. It was starting to feel positively claustrophobic to him and he sneered, his sword held in both hands. He had enough astral to obliterate the building, if not to speed time, but he didn't want to risk the equipment he'd come to find.

A scurrying sound came to his left. It almost sounded like someone hurrying around on their hands and knees, he thought.

Ewan came over the table to his right, vaulting it with one hand braced on the wood and that bloody huge sword of his already swinging. Aion brought his own weapon up to block it, his wings spreading to keep his balance, and skidded back a step at the impact. Remington had always been stronger than any normal human. Now he looked at Aion coldly, pushing against him.

Aion beat him at with his wings, ignoring how much it hurt him along with the human. "I should have killed you years ago," he growled.

"Funny, I've been thinking the same thing."

They broke apart, both of them leaping back, Remington stumbling against that table, Aion crashing into a tower of small black cases that proceeded to tumble around them both.

They ran for the open area in the centre of the lab, swords clashing together as equipment crashed down behind them, blocking the makeshift corridor. They reached the open area at the same time and broke apart around either side of the table Chrno was on.

Aion skidded to a halt and swung as hard as he could. Just as fast despite the size of his weapon, Ewan blocked and sparks flicked down onto Chrno's face and chest, sizzling out in the blood. They both swung again, blocked, and Aion kicked the table, sending it skidding towards the priest. Ewan caught it, Chrno nearly tumbling out to the floor, and they both glared at each other.

"I'm not going to let you take him," the priest said.

"He's mine."

"Then you shouldn't have thrown him away." Grabbing the edge of the table, Ewan yanked his feet up and swung under it, kicking out. Caught in the front of the thighs and the hips, Aion flew back and crashed into the astral generator he'd been hoping to acquire. Delicately made and more than a little bit unstable, it exploded, throwing him forward again.

It was more than he wanted to deal with. Screaming in pain and rage, his hair on fire and his wings singed, Aion landed awkwardly on his feet and ran for the door, swinging wildly at Remington as he passed. The man ducked and Aion was at the door, crashing through it and taking to the air, his sword at least still clutched in his hand.

--000--

Shader poked her head nervously from behind a large safe. "Is he gone?" she whimpered. "Because if he isn't, I'm going to just pee myself now. Oh, wait, I already did that."

"He's gone, Shader," Ewan assured her and leaned over Chrno, laying a hand on his cheek. "Hey," he called softly. No answer.

Shader came up beside him, her ears still twitching spastically in all directions. She bent over Chrno and Remington stepped back to let her work. There was no point in going after Aion, though he did step outside to check that the demon was actually gone. He didn't see any sign of Aion at all. Instead he saw the militia returning and muttered a word that was both blasphemous and ungentlemanly.

--000--

Rosette came back to the convent feeling tired and grouchy. They hadn't caught the demon, but they'd done a whole lot of running around, and she had a grouchy memory of Satella making the militia run around like idiots using her jewel knight. Today felt like too much of the same thing. All she wanted to do was take a shower and lie on the couch with her head in Chrno's lap. Maybe she'd rub his ears for a while. He liked that.

Getting out of the car while Joshua called out instructions to the team, she put her hands against the small of her back and stretched while she looked across the green lawns towards Shader's lab. Chrno might be there now, getting his astral.

Father Remington was standing in front of the shattered door, his sword in his hand.

Rosette couldn't remember crossing the lawn later. She just knew she was suddenly in front of Remington and he was opening his mouth to tell her something she didn't want to hear. She ran inside and there was her nightmare. Chrno lying on Shader's autopsy table with his throat and chest soaked in blood.

Her scream echoed straight across the Order.

--000--

Joshua came into the lab uncertainly. Even he was nervous around his sister when she was in this kind of mood, and she had a real reason to be pissed.

Rosette was sitting on a metal chair in front of one of Shader's tanks, the same one Chrno had been in for the last two years. The same chair. Now he floated in it again, the only difference being he was in his human form, not his demon one. Rosette had no tears in her eyes as she watched him. Instead they looked like chips of ice and Joshua could see her knuckles were white where she had her hands clasped together.

"Rosette?" he said to her. "Are you okay?"

"Go away."

Joshua swallowed and came closer. She was his big sister. He didn't have to be afraid of her. She was upset, that was all. She had reason to be. "He's going to be all right," he reminded her. "Shader said he was only going to be in the tank for a week or so."

Her face twisted. "Go away."

"Rosette…"

"GO AWAY!" she screamed. Joshua jumped and started backing for the door. She was shimmering, her horns and ears lengthening, threatening to go to her full demon form right there. She just needed some time alone, he told himself, said something apologetic, and fled.

Rosette heard her brother go and felt bad about that, but mostly she was furious. She'd left Chrno behind so he could be safe, so he could continue to recover and give his legions time to fully wake up. Instead he'd ended up impaled through the throat and spine and his legions couldn't cope. She looked at his darkened form lying in the tank. It was all Aion's fault.

Her eyes narrowed. Nearly every injury he'd ever suffered was Aion's fault, from his broken horns to his overworked legions. Rosette pressed her hand against the tank opposite her lover's face and looked up.

"Shader!"

The cat's face peered out from the maze, looking nervous, though Rosette was extremely pleased with her. "Yes?"

"You said you put tracking beacons on all your equipment. Does that include Aion's sword?"

"Um, yes?"

Rosette smiled and Shader fled with a yelp at the viciousness of it. Rosette let her go and stood, to go and prepare herself for war.

She was going after Aion.

THE END


	4. Swift and Blinding Violence

SWIFT AND BLINDING VIOLENCE

_Here's more. Fun times for all. By the way, for those who care, my book is currently (as of June 2008) being reviewed by a publishing house for possible publication. Of course, this part can apparently take six to eight months. Argh grr snarl! I hate waiting. Gah._

**SWIFT AND BLINDING VIOLENCE**

By Hydraa

Rosette stepped out of the car she'd borrowed from the Order and driven all the way from New York City to downtown Toronto. It was a city she'd never been to before, but it didn't really look different from New York or Chicago or even San Francisco. Late at night as it was, only a few people hurried down the sidewalks on their own business, barely looking at the blonde girl in the nun's headdress and skirts.

Rosette in turn didn't look too much at them. Her attention was on a building across the street, on the other side of a small square. The square itself fronted a large, opulent building with Grecian columns framing the huge doors. Tall, expensive windows rose up the four flights as well, leading to a red tiled roof with elegant dormers. To Rosette, the architecture looked unbelievably tacky, but she'd been watching the place for two days and she was absolutely sure that it was where Aion was living, along with his minion Genai.

She'd watched them both entering and leaving over the last two days, along with the staff which kept the place clean. None of the servants stayed long past dark, the two demons obviously preferring their privacy, and, most importantly, tonight Genai was away as well. Rosette didn't care where he went or how soon he'd be back. She intended to be done and gone before he returned.

Walking around to the back of the car, which she'd picked because of its extra large trunk, she opened the boot and rummaged inside, pulling out various items and draping them around herself. The few people still outside so late at night started to take notice of her, some of them murmuring to one other as they stopped to watch while the more intelligent of them hurried away, looking frightened. Hopefully none of them would call the police, but Rosette planned to be gone before any of them showed up either.

Finished with her gear, she pulled a final item out of the car, bracing the length of it over her shoulder as she turned towards the house. Never having seen anything like it, the spectators kept watching curiously, one of them even going so far as to wrinkle his nose and spit on the edge of the sidewalk.

"What's that, girlie?" he asked. "Some kind of fandangled vacuum cleaner? Did your mama give it to you?" He laughed at his humour, as did the men standing with him.

Rosette grinned at him, easily holding the heavy weapon. "Nah, a demon made it for me. She calls it a rocket launcher." Turning, she sighted through the scope, crosshairs lining up nicely right on the centre of the window in the very middle of the house, and pulled the trigger.

Fifty pounds of explosives packed into a missile the length of her femur roared out of the front end of the launcher, a plume of fire discharging out the back. The men shrieked as the rocket streaked across the square, arcing up, and slammed into the front of the building with an explosion that shattered glass in every building on the street and blew chunks of stone and glass back across the square and the street, showering over the screaming spectators. They ran, still bellowing in terror, as Rosette dropped the launcher heavily onto the rubble by her feet, blew a lock of blonde hair out of her eyes, and drew a set of twin pistols from one of the gun belts she wore.

"Gee, I hope I missed," she leered and sprinted across the square.

"AION!" she shouted. "YOU BETTER BE FUCKING ALIVE SO I CAN KILL YOU MYSELF!"

Racing into the thick dust cloud that was still pouring down from what was left of the house, she ran to keep her word.

--000--

Aion was at the back of the house in the study, pouring himself what he felt was a very well deserved glass of good scotch.

Without the resources he'd possessed when he had Fiore and Shader at his command, he couldn't broker deals quite so traditionally demonic as he used to, but he'd still been able to engineer a number of financial arrangements that would ensure he had power and money to keep himself very comfortable for even the duration of his long life. For the last few years, those efforts had been largely a matter of habit, but right now he felt invigorated, and the successes he'd had of late had him in a very good mood. He had the financial heartbeat of the continent in his pocket. If he felt like it, he could cripple the world into a depression it might never recover from, or guide into a paradise that would improve life for all. He just hadn't decided which option would be more beneficial to him yet.

What had him in the best mood of all though was the sword that currently lay across the marble top of the bar, his own horns gleaming dully at the hilt. Without the horns attached to his own head he couldn't speed time for himself, but he could draw on the energy they constantly collected and they held more than Genai could spare. More, he now knew of a machine that could generate astral, perhaps enough to allow him to affect time again, just as Fiore's gems used to.

He also knew that Chrno was alive and the thought of having him back was arguably better than having the sword.

Or perhaps almost as much, he thought as he reached to stroke the slim hilt of the weapon, since the sword was here and Chrno was not. He couldn't even feel the other demon at the moment, presumably because Shader had him back in the healing tanks. Aion should have thought of that possibility years ago. He could have been spared years of grief if he had.

Aion smirked and sipped his scotch, planning ahead to the meetings he had with several different banks and brokers the next day. He was pondering profit margins when he heard a bizarre whooshing sound that he'd never encountered before.

Then the entire front of his house blew up.

"AION!" he heard shouted, while he was still trying to drag himself out of the rubble that used to be his study's front wall, as well as half his book collection. "YOU BETTER BE FUCKING ALIVE SO I CAN KILL YOU MYSELF!"

That voice he recognized. Aion growled, feeling dirty, scratched, cranky, and more than a little put out.

"That bitch," he snarled, dragging his sword out from the remains of the bar as he shifted to his fully demon form and stomped out of the room, into the cloud of dust.

--000--

The house was still coming down, the centre of it mostly gone and the floors still existing above dropping chunks of rubble down into the spaces below.

In her demon form, with two inch long horns and demon wings that shifted to golden feathers at their ends, Rosette clambered into the house, peering through the dust as best she could as she tried to listen for her enemy, or better, to sense him. It wasn't something she was especially good at, even with several years of practice, but she did feel a tingling along her horns that might just indicate the presence of a demon.

Either that or it was the funny feeling she had that the house was about to fall on her.

Rosette ignored the feeling, making her way through a ruined foyer towards a grand staircase that must have been worth millions with all the antiques scattered everywhere before she blew them up. It almost reminded her of the damage she used to cause when she was a novice in the militia, only she was doing this alone and that was so _wrong._

This was vengeance, pure and simple. Rosette wasn't so deluded that she'd try to pretend otherwise. Her lover was lying unconscious in a healing tank, his legions struggling to recover, and the psychotic bastard who lived here was the one who'd done it. She was going to engage in some swift and blinding violence and then go home to Chrno and take a break for a while. Aion had done nothing to deserve any restraint on her part and she wasn't going to give him any.

He was also one of the most dangerous demons in the world, if not the most dangerous, but she didn't care about that either. Layman Rosette Christopher was hardly helpless either and she was _owed_.

"AION!" she shouted again, peering up the stairs as the dust started to clear.

Still, for all its thickness, it was the dust that warned her. It swirled suddenly, out of odds to the rubble that was still falling, and Rosette threw herself backwards, her wings spreading as she lifted both pistols and fired into the dust before her. The swirl darted to the side, impossibly fast, and she landed on her back, her legs spreading in a near split as Aion landed before her, the point of his sword slamming into the floor right before her. For an space of time less than an instant, they glared at each other and then Rosette rolled, swinging her leg up and over as she did, clearing the pommel of his sword and slamming the heel of her boot with a satisfying smack into the side of his face. Aion grunted, spitting blood, and rocked to one side, barely keeping his balance even as the vicious tail whip that came out from the base of his skull stabbed at her. Shrieking, Rosette yanked her left hand pistol around and the barb at the end of the tail stabbed through it, stopping barely a centimetre from the end of her nose. She found herself staring cross-eyed at it, both of them gasping for breath and trying not to cough from the dust.

Aion yanked the gun out of her hand, the metal screaming as he whipped it behind him, trying to flick it away and free his barb. It was too tightly caught though and he looked at it incredulously.

Rosette smirked. "Not working out for you?" She pointed her right hand pistol at his stomach, only a few feet away. Too bad."

She fired. Aion reeled back, yelling, and she scrambled to her feet as he grabbed his stomach and glared at her. "You need to do better than that," he snarled, moving his hands, and the blonde woman saw that her bullet had torn through his clothing, but his legions repaired the damage to his body so quickly, pushing the metal out as they did, that it was like the bullet had bounced off.

He was incredibly powerful, she reminded herself, even as the older demon started to smirk. He couldn't keep it up forever though, not without a steady power source, though of course he had that with his sword. Then again, his sword wasn't an infinite power source and she'd brought so much ammunition with her.

Rosette returned his smirk and dropped her pistol, reaching up behind her with both hands. Shader had designed an elaborate system of gun belts and harnesses for her that worked as well as the gun box Chrno used to carry. Rosette brought a pair of two foot long automatic machine guns around to the front, both loaded with thirty Gospels each, and had the pleasure of seeing the consternation on Aion's face before she opened up with both of them.

On full automatic of course.

--000--

The Toronto police responded to the explosion with as much speed and ability as could be managed in the late 1920s. Decades before anything resembling a SWAT team had even been envisioned, they weren't prepared to deal with an exploding building or what came out of it.

Aion burst out of the smoke that poured from the gaping hole at the front of his former house, barrel rolling to avoid a glistening staccato of light that traced across the sky above him to slam into the empty business offices on the other side of the street. Armed with his sword, he landed heavily, crouching on pavement that cracked under him as he looked back towards the house, his handsome face twisted and monstrous with hate.

Rosette stepped out of the smoke, her own wings half spread and her headdress gone, her dress torn and filthy. She still had the machine guns though, holding them one-handed towards the white-haired demon, though they both heard the hollow click as the magazines came up empty.

Aion started to grin at her. "Almost," he gasped, turning to rise, his sword gleaming. "Swords don't run out of ammunition though."

"Neither do I," Rosette retorted and pressed the release buttons on the side of her guns. Identical magazines dropped to the ground as she swung the weapons around and brought them back around against her spine. Full magazines in a holster holder on her back slotted neatly into the guns with a snap and she brought them back around again.

Aion dove for the cover of her car, swearing venomously as Gospels ripped up the ground where he'd been standing, following him and chewing up his leg as he dove behind the vehicle, letting the heavy metal of it absorb the blasts while he tried to catch his breath. The wounds hurt horrendously, but he pressed the horns at the hilt of his sword against his mouth and shuddered, drawing deeply on the fading energy still within them, using it to fuel his Legions and repair himself. He couldn't keep this up forever, he couldn't, but Rosette Christopher had an insane number of weapons on her and he couldn't get close. He _had_ to get close.

Or did he? Aion took a deep breath, drew in a deeper draught of energy, and reared up from behind the car, taking a half dozen hits along his side and chest as he flung the only weapon he had that could be used over a distance.

His sword somersaulted across the space between them, tumbling end over end through a staccato of gunfire before slamming hilt deep in Rosette's breast, just above and to the left of her heart.

The young woman shrieked, the sound of it turning to a gurgle as her lung filled with blood. Gasping, she dropped both her guns and crumpled to the ground. Sitting there, she grabbed the hilt of the sword with her only functioning hand, trying to pull it out as blood dribbled out of her mouth and her own Legions started to work.

Aion stepped out from behind her car, limping but already healing from the wounds he'd taken. He was nearly at his limit, but she couldn't know that and, most importantly, she wasn't as powerful as he was. Human blood and weapons or not, she had tiny, next to nothing horns and her Legions were weak. She couldn't heal in the time it would take him to walk over to her and rip her head off.

"Bitch," he gasped, glaring at her and hating her with every ounce of feeling in him. Thief, corruptor. Vixen bitch from hell. Pandemonium wanna-be."

Rosette glared at him, pale and gasping, her hand trembling even as she pulled a tiny box out of her pocket and pushed a button on it.

The car Aion was standing beside blew up.

His landing was particularly ignoble, Rosette thought as she looked at where the white-haired demon lay sprawled face down on the torn up pavement, his head half buried in a pile of rubble and a smoking tire resting delicately on his back.

"Never underestimate superior firepower," she gasped at him and whimpered, trying to get the sword out. It hurt so badly though and she had no leverage. Tears trickled down her cheeks as she tried anyway. If Aion woke up and she was still down, he'd kill her. Then he'd go after Chrno and that was worse. It was the thought of her beloved, purple-haired demon that made her ignore the sword and get to her feet, swaying madly as she reached down, nearly fainting in the process, and lifted one of the guns on her right hand. Her left arm hung limp, useless.

That didn't matter, she told herself as she staggered over to Aion, the gun hanging almost impossibly heavy from her hand as she made her way over the rough ground. Distantly, she was aware of the police and other people at the edge of her peripheral vision, but they didn't matter. Only Aion mattered, and what he could do to them all if she didn't manage to kill him now.

More movement shadowed her, people shouting at her, probably to stop. That didn't make much sense. Unconscious or not, Aion had demon wings sticking out of his back and a whip tail that still had her pistol plugging the end. Granted, she looked just as demonic herself with her half bat, half bird wings and her own tiny horns and eye ridges.

Rosette fell to her knees, then over onto her side, the sword canting her over enough for it to touch the ground. Confused, she tried to figure out what had happened and her eyes focused on an object that had suddenly appeared only a few feet from her, at the side where she hadn't been watching.

Oh applesauce, she thought as she recognized part of a cross-barrier, the kind the Order used to hold demons. Toronto wasn't supposed to have a branch of the Order in it. Canada didn't have the order at all; there was something else based here, only she couldn't remember what.

There had to be something extra in the barrier that the Order didn't use as well, she thought as dizziness washed over her. Either that or it was the sword still sticking out of her that was making her faint.

Either way, she did faint, and people she didn't know and wouldn't have recognized anyway moved in to surround them both.

**THE END**

_Yes, Kintatsu, that vixen reference was straight from a comment you made on one of my chapters. I _liked_ that reference._


	5. The Enemy of my Enemy?

_This is version 2. I keep getting Genai and Viede mixed up for some reason. It's Genai in this story, since I turned Viede into dust quite a while ago._

**THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY?**

by Hydraa

He felt like he was being born again, taken cold and wet out of darkness. He shivered, his eyes glued shut, and felt a towel rub roughly over him, almost painful against his sensitized skin. Dopey and confused, he reached out mentally for his master and gave an almost inaudible whine when he couldn't find her.

"Chrno," Shader hissed in his ear. "Wakie wakie. Hurry. We gotta go."

Was that who he was? Slowly, Chrno opened his eyes and looked up at Shader, her cat ears pricked fully forward while she blinked at him through her glasses. "Shader?" he whispered. "Where's Rosette?"

She shook her head vigorously. "In trouble, I just know it. We have to go help her."

Chrno stared up at her, suddenly very awake. He was lying on a padded table in her lab, his body still soaked in the gel from her healing tube. He didn't have the faintest idea why.

"What's going on?" he managed. He felt tremendously weak as well.

Shader's ears went back and she looked around wildly before she leaned over to answer him. "Aion attacked you, but the cute blond guy with the big sword chased him off. I just hid under my desk and screamed for help and wet myself and stuff. It was really bad. And he blew up my astral generator. I kinda sorta don't really know how it works so I haven't really got it working again yet. Not completely." She wrung her hands together. "Okay, not at all. Do you mind? You don't mind, do you?"

Chrno stared at her, his jaw hanging open. "How am I supposed to not mind about the machine that keeps me alive? How else am I supposed to get astral?"

"Like this!" she squealed and kissed him, full on the mouth, exhaling a huge amount of astral into him even as she slipped him her tongue. Chrno nearly gagged on them both, but then the astral flowed through his tissues, saturating him with life as he felt his strength return. Shader finally let him go and leaned back, reeling a bit with a big grin on her face. "I liked that!"

"Just don't tell Rosette," Chrno warned her, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. He paused, his eyes narrowing. "Where. Is. Rosette?"

Shader's ears went flat again. "She left two days ago. She was pissed. I'm talking _really_ pissed. Rip the head off chickens and stab baby goats pissed. She scared me." Her ears came forward again. "Not as much as Aion scares me, mind you."

"Shader!"

She flinched. "Rosette went after Aion. She was planning to kill him. She told me not to tell anyone where she was going, which isn't easy since Remington is really pushing. I mean lots. He's a real nag. So is her brother. Actually, he's worse. Actually, I didn't know Rosette _could_ give me orders anymore." She saw his look. "Right. Rosette is missing. Everyone's freaking out. I know she's alive 'cause I can still feel her, but I can't _find_ her. She's too far away and my link isn't all that good. I could never find Aion either, damn it. Of course, all I had to do to know where he was was to go look for the closest tailor. I need you."

Chrno sat up slowly, swinging his legs over the side of the table and breathing deep as he reached for his master. Awake this time, he could reach much farther, deep into his own mind and outward, across the miles for an unfathomable distance until he felt her. His Rosette. His love. His master.

"I've got her," he said.

"Yay!" Shader squealed, clapping her hands together. "Let's go get her."

"Alone?"

Her ears went flat again. "She said not to tell anyone. You're not just anyone so I can tell you, but I can't tell anyone else. She doesn't want them to know."

That sounded like Rosette. She wouldn't want anyone risking themselves for her, especially her brother, who would have followed her in a heartbeat. The thought of her going after Aion alone was terrifying, but oh so Rosette.

"Why didn't she wait for me?" he whined.

Shader just looked at him.

"Fine," he grumbled. "Don't say it."

He stood up slowly, still a little dizzy, and only then realized that he was naked. Shader grinned at him and handed him another towel.

Twenty minutes later he was washed and dressed, standing with Shader by the main door to the lab while she peered outside. It was night, everyone but the watch asleep as she led him across the darkened lawns towards the garages. Chrno followed silently, hurrying after the nervous tech demon. To not do so never occurred to him. Rosette needed him and he loved her. It was that simple. Leaving everyone else out of it made sense as well. Aion was too dangerous for the members of the Order to handle and Rosette wouldn't thank him for putting her brother or Azmaria at risk. So he followed Shader, who also belonged to Rosette, and let her lead him to one of the order's black automobiles. Grabbing the key off the wall, she unlocked the doors.

"Do you know how to drive?" she whispered. Chrno shook his head so she climbed into the driver's seat while he got in beside her. She turned the engine on and looked at him. "Neither do I," she confessed and floored the accelerator.

It was worse than driving with Rosette.

--000--

Toronto wasn't a city Chrno had ever been to before. He wouldn't have known he was in it now, if not for a sign caught out of the corner of his eye as Shader reeled down the road, swerving across multiple lanes while police cars, alerted to her erratic driving, chased them.

"You're going to get us killed!" Chrno screamed, hanging onto the door handle for dear life and half tempted to throw himself out and take his chances.

"Am not!" she squealed, though her ears were flat against her head and she didn't seem to understand what the brakes were for. Her face was sheet white and her eyes wild. "Why are they chasing us??"

"I dunno. Maybe it was because of that accident you caused on the freeway!" Six cars had piled up thanks to her driving. She swerved again, almost slamming into an oncoming car, and back into her own lane. Chrno would have screamed if he'd been able to inhale to do it.

"They're gonna catch us!" she whined. "I'm a demon! I'm delicate! I won't do good in jail!"

That was probably an understatement. Chrno looked back at the police following them, all of them gaining despite Shader's crazed efforts. They'd catch them soon and if they weren't very lucky, Shader would crash and maybe kill them both.

He looked up at the roof of the car, made of thin metal. From it, he looked at Shader.

"Keep the car steady," he told her. Her ears flickered and he changed, forcing his shape into his demon form, his wings tight against his back as he flexed his claws and tore upwards, right through the roof of the car. Shader shrieked along with the metal, the car swerving madly again and then turning straight for the cement wall that boardered the side of the road.

Chrno grabbed her by the back of the lab coat she was still wearing and leaped, out through the gaping hole in the top of the car. His wings spread once they were clear and he downswept hard, bearing them up above it and the fire when the car hit the wall and exploded. The last he saw of the police cars, they'd skidded to a halt and the police themselves were standing at their open doors, staring upwards.

Chrno flew, his wings beating steadily as he carried Shader hanging below him like a prize, following that endless tie he had to his lover, high over the still darkened city and into the land north of it. He was horribly out of shape after two years in a tank, but he didn't let that stop him. He could feel Rosette, could almost smell her, and he wasn't stopping for anything, not even Shader's hysterical sobs and wails to put her down.

--000--

They'd driven all day to get from New York to Toronto and crashed the car in the middle of the night. In the hours before dawn, Chrno and Shader crouched in a huge elm tree, looking over a tall stone wall and across elaborate, darkened lawns and gardens towards a great manor house.

"It looks like they mailed it over from England," Chrno said at last.

"It does. Creepy." She looked up at him from where she hugged the tree's trunk. "Now what do we do?" They'd seen fifteen guards on the grounds so far and the manor itself was well lit.

Chrno shrugged. "We go in. Rosette's in there, I can feel her. We have to go in."

"So you got yourself a death wish?"

Shader went absolutely white, every strand of fur and hair on her body standing straight up as she nearly fell out of the tree. Chrno spun on the branch he'd been crouched on, hissing, and looked up at a demon now perched on a higher branch, looking down at them, or appearing to since his eyes were both covered by a heavy, studded mask.

"Genai?!" he gasped.

--000--

Genai had come for Aion.

Chrno supposed he shouldn't have been surprised. Genai had the same tie to Aion that Chrno did to Rosette and had held it for close to a century, which let him find his master while Shader needed Chrno's help, at least until they got close enough for Shader to feel her herself.

What did surprise him was the fact that the estate they'd found didn't belong to Aion and he didn't actually have Rosette. In fact, according to Genai, he was a prisoner just as much as she was. Genai just didn't know to whom.

"We were perfectly fucking happy here, you little shit for brains," he snarled, "until your bitch showed up and blew the house into a billion pieces."

"She did?" Shader squealed. "It worked! I knew it would work! I wanted to test it, but oh no, nobody would let me. _We don't want you blowing up the lab, Shader. _ Hah! I wouldn't blow up the lab. Maybe the garage or the church. I don't like that bell. I really don't. It wakes me up on Sundays."

"I think Aion showing up and stabbing me through the throat probably gave her some incentive," Chrno said dryly, ignoring Shader's monologue. They'd moved away from the manor grounds before they were spotted and so they could talk freely. In fact, they were in a small cafe, in human form, with Shader's ears and horns hidden under a cap while they had breakfast. They didn't entirely avoid attention though, not with Chrno's lavender hair and pointed ears, or the blindfold Genai was wearing. Shader's tendency to meow didn't help either. They were only a mile away from the manor, in a little block full of elegant shops, and their clothes made them stand out as much as their features.

The waitress brought them their breakfast, looking at them uncertainly and nearly fleeing when Genai grinned up at her toothily. Chrno stirred his eggs while Shader dug into her food and looked at Genai. "What do you want from us, Genai?"

The other demon shrugged. "I receed that dump already. I need your help to get in."

Chrno had thought as much. Shader stared at him. "You want us to help you get Aion? He's dangerous!"

"He used to be your master!" Genai snapped. Other people in the cafe turned at the outburst to stare at him.

Chrno rubbed his hand over his face, wishing they'd gone somewhere else for this, but he and Shader were both hungry. He supposed Genai was too. There was a pinched look about the other demon's face. Chrno could guess how he was feeling.

"Look, fighting each other won't get us anywhere. Do you know who has Rosette and Aion?"

"Not a fucking clue. I just know they have enough firepower that I don't want to just go busting in there, and I can feel the wards on those walls. They're not normal losers."

"Great," Chrno groused. The Order used to have wards on the walls, before Aion destroyed them, mainly by destroying most of the Order itself. Chrno didn't want to do that, even if he had the power without his horns. Genai didn't have the strength at all, or he'd have done it already. Eventually, they'd go in even without a plan though. Their loyalties to their masters were stronger than even their sense of self preservation.

Genai had a point though. Chrno hadn't known what to expect when he and Shader went after Rosette, he just knew he had to do it. Her absense was a pain inside him and he didn't want to be without her. Now that he knew where she was though, he wasn't so sure he could come flying to the rescue without some help, and risking Genai made him feel a lot less guilty than the thought of involving the Order.

He hated this. Rosette was supposed to be the one making the decisions, not him. He was a soldier demon. Genai was a soldier demon. Shader was a tech demon. None of them were supposed to be in this sort of position, with no one to rely on. At that moment, Chrno would have given just about anything to have someone tell him what to do.

"Okay," he said at last. "We'll work together, but only until we get our masters back, and once we do, everyone goes their own way without fighting, got it?"

"Sounds good to me," Genai agreed.

Chrno wasn't niave. He knew Genai's agreement wouldn't last any longer than the first command Aion gave him, but by then, they'd have Rosette back and she'd know how to handle it. Probably by having the three of them run away very fast, Chrno suspected.

Reaching across the table, both of them shook hands.

"Okay," Shader said. "Now that we have that out of the way, what are we supposed to do?"

Chrno didn't have the faintest idea.

"Great," Genai muttered, tossing his toast down onto his plate. "We're screwed."

Shader shook her head vigorously, almost tossing her cap off. "Nuh'uh," she said, her mouth full. "Something will come up. It always does. We're Sinners after all."

"Right," Chrno sighed and looked at his breakfast, not really hungry anymore. He just wanted Rosette back. Until she was, nothing else would matter.

--000--

According to Genai, from what little Aion had bothered to tell him, the manor and estates belonged to the Solus family, who were extremely rich and also demon hunters. Genai had been warned to keep well clear of them. Chrno vagually wondered what Aion had been doing living in a city with an entire family of demon hunters in it, but didn't have time to care.

He and Genai crouched in the bushes outside the wall, waiting for the sun to go down and for Shader to do her share. It wasn't much of a plan they'd come up with, but none of them were any great sort of tacticians. The best planning they'd been able to come up with during the day was to go to city hall and get hold of the manor's floorplans. It would help them know where they were inside the building. Their instincts would take them to Rosette and Aion.

"We don't want to kill anyone," Chrno warned in a low tone. "Be careful."

"Speak for yourself," Genai grinned, raising one arm. From the elbow down, he'd transformed it into a vicious, multibarbed stabbing weapon.

"They're demon hunters," Chrno hissed. "They'll hunt you down if you hurt any of them." More, there were kids in that house. Chrno had seen them playing on the back lawns while they waited.

Finally, the sun went down and the two demons tensed, waiting still for Shader's sign. It came only a few minutes later, when a half police cars screamed up to the front gates, alerted by Shader's phone call. Chrno wasn't sure what she'd said to convince them, but it looked like they'd really taken her seriously.

That was on the other side of the estate from where they were. Chrno and Genai waited another twenty seconds and then vaulted the wall, wings half furled. It actually hurt, the wards trying to force them back, but neither were minor demons. Landing on the cool grass on the other side, they bolted towards the manor house, moving with demonic speed.

The entry they'd chosen was a servant's entrance to the left of the great patio in the back. The door was locked, but Chrno broke it with a twist of his wrist on the knob. The door still wouldn't open though and with a glance back at Genai, he put his shoulder to it and heaved.

The frame around the door broke, with a lot more noise than Chrno would have liked. Grimacing, he stepped inside, looking around for anyone who might have heard them, and let Genai pass him before he turned and set the door back in the frame as neatly as he could. It wouldn't fool anyone though.

Genai moved down the hall, crouching with that terrible weapon held ready. They both could feel their masters, though Chrno had no idea if they were being held in the same place. He could only feel Rosette. The answer to that came as they reached the end of the hallway and peered out into a junction of halls, ornate doors and elegant furnishings on the walls. Chrno even saw a few suits of armour waiting. There was no sign of anyone, but he could hear people, stirred up by the emergency crews arguing to get in at the gate. The police seemed to think that the people who'd caused that huge crash on the freeway were inside.

Rosette was somewhere to the left. Chrno started in that direction as Genai turned to the right. Both of them stopped and looked at each other.

Genai grimaced. "Figures." Turning, he trotted away to the right.

Chrno shook his head, really hoping that the other demon didn't meet up with anyone on his trip. Not that he wanted to either and hoped that the police would keep these people well and truly distracted.

He went left, his shoulderblades itching as he crept down the hall, listening, sensing, and smelling for anyone's approach. He heard nerve-wracking echoes, but found no one, at least not yet.

The manor was huge, which they'd seen in the plans but hadn't fully appreciated. Chrno went down a hallway that was at least fifteen feet wide and dozens of feet tall. It was ornately decorated as well, with antique furniture and paintings on the wall that were three times the height of a man. Chrno looked at them as he made his way down the hall to see they were images of what had to be the family, obviously painted long ago so that it felt like he was going through time to follow the corridor and look up at them.

Most of them were of men, always with two in the same picture, either identical or close enough to look like brothers. They wore whatever the fashion of the times was, starting in medieval hose and working up through the centuries towards the present. Interspersed with them were paintings of women , far more infrequently and always with a single woman alone, looking out from the canvas with a glitter in their eyes that was familiar, if he could only remember from where. All of them looked quiet and demure though, nothing like the woman he was hunting for.

Footsteps sounded from somewhere ahead, definitely not just an echo this time. Chrno leaped over behind a suit of armour, his wings hugging his sides, and shifted into the smallest shape he could, that of a red-suited boy with a long purple braid. He felt his astral draw diminish, along with his senses. He could still feel Rosette, but not as clearly. Moving back into the shadows, he held still.

Two men hurried past, muttering to each other. Deliberately not looking directly at them, Chrno didn't see what either looked like and waited until they were gone before he started to move. He heard more feet then and ducked back behind the armour again.

Two boys ran past, exclaiming in excitement and probably headed for the main gate where their elders must be. Shorter than the men who'd gone by earlier, Chrno saw them more clearly from the shadows, if only briefly, and was reminded for an eerily nostalgic moment of himself and Aion as children, running through the antiseptic halls of Pandemonium.

A voice chased after them. "Get back here!" a woman shouted. "Mind me!"

"Aw, mom!" the boys protested. "We want to see!"

"Don't you dare! You have to do your duty and guard your sister! Now!"

Grudgingly, the boys came back, heads low as they grumbled to themselves about the unfairness of it.

"Don't you dare," their mother told them. "Think how you'd feel if you didn't have a sister anymore."

Chrno waited until he was sure they were gone and stepped out from his hiding place again. His boy form he kept, his braid tucked down the back of his coat. He was about the same size as the boys. Perhaps if anyone spotted him, they'd waste a second thinking he was one of the children.

He hurried on, not looking up at the paintings anymore. Time was running out. Somewhere, Genai was hunting for Aion, and if he was seen by anyone, he'd kill them. Once Rosette was safe, Chrno planned to lead the manor's inhabitants after him. It was the only way he could think of to protect them from one of Genai's killing frenzies.

Chrno came to a huge pair of double doors that he could feel led to Rosette and pushed the rightmost one open just enough to slip through. The massive room they led to was circular, the walls lined from floor to sixty foot ceiling with bookcases, ladders, and a mezzanine providing access to the higher shelves. All that broke the expanse of bookcases other than the corkscrew staircases to the mesazzine on either side and the high, stained glass windows, was a huge, stone fireplace directly across from the doors and a painting above it, one even larger than the paintings in the hall.

The purple-haired demon stopped, his mouth dry and his hand clutching the ebony and garnet cross he wore as he stared up at the delicately blonde haired girl in the painting, her hair tied back with a blue ribbon and a sweet smile on her face.

_Mary??_ he thought.

"I told you to guard your sister!"

Chrno's head snapped upwards. A woman stood on the mezzanine, her hands gripping the railing as she glared down at him. She looked to be in her late thirties, her hair up in a bun and her expression angry, but still he saw the resemblance between her and the girl in the painting. He didn't say anything, frozen.

"Where's your brother?" the woman demanded, and frowned, looking down at him more closely. Her eyes widened and he bolted forward, his pointed ears quivering at her sudden scream.

There was a small door beside the fireplace, one he might not have noticed right away if he couldn't feel that Rosette had gone through it. Chrno shifted to demon form as he crossed the library floor, the woman's screams growing even more piercing as she saw him do so, and hit the door with his shoulder, tearing it off its hinges and into the stone wall on the far side.

The door led to a corridor without any windows, only a few feet wide and damp. Chrno didn't remember seeing it in the floor plans, but he could smell Rosette now, the essence of her in his soul as much as his nose and blinding him to anything else.

He almost flew down the corridor, he ran so fast. It was only a few dozen feet long before it went down steep stairs to what he supposed must have once been a wine cellar. Now he could see the glowing lights of cross wards on the floor, creating an impenetrable barrier that no demon could cross.

A demon could attack them from the outside though. Chrno aimed for one with a number of walls of force reflecting out from it, lashing out with a clawed hand to tear it in two. The backlash hurt terribly, singing his fingers, but he kept going, into the huge, darkened room to the corner where he could feel his Rosette.

She lay huddled on the cold stone, wrapped around herself without even a blanket to keep herself warm. Her shoulder was a mess, no longer bleeding but slow to repair itself due to the effect of the wards. Chrno hissed at the sight of her and knelt down, whispering her name.

Something seemed to move in the darkness. Chrno lifted his head, listening, but didn't hear anything. They had to move though. This was a dead end they didn't want to get caught in. He bent over his lover again. "Rosette?"

She stirred, mumbling something about it being too early to get up.

Chrno smiled, terribly relieved to hear that, and got his arms under her, lifting her up to cradle her against his chest.

Rosette stirred, her eyes fluttering open. "Chrno?" she slurred. "Where are we? Why is it so dark?"

"It's okay," he whispered. "We're leaving." Turning, he hurried to the stairs, his skin crawling and the barbed tail that came out from the base of his skull waving threateningly. Rosette cradled close, he ran up the stairs and down the hallway back to the library, his master starting to wake up and complain in his arms. Chrno just held her closer and kept running, hoping that the woman's shrieks outside hadn't alerted anyone.

He ran out into the library, taking in everything in an instant. The woman was still on the mezzanine, now yelling at two boys, one with brown hair and one with blond, who were descending one of the corkscrew stairs. Both of them were yelling at Chrno as they saw him, swinging baseball bats and nearly hitting each other in their enthusiasm. Worse, two middle-aged men were coming in the doors, both also close enough in appearance to each other to be brothers. They wore glasses and looked somehow familiar, but the shotguns they carried looked lethal enough, and neither seemed afraid as Chrno spread his wings and hissed, ready to kick off the ground and crash out the window with his cargo.

A tearing roar sounded from the passageway behind him.

"There was another demon in there," Rosette gasped.

That was why the ward he destroyed had multiple walls coming from it, to make multiple cells. Chrno dove to the side and rolled, coming back to his feet as a nightmare came out of the corridor.

It had six legs and huge jaws, heavily armoured with tiny eyes and multiple bladed tails. Why were they keeping that thing in their basement? Chrno thought wildly while the woman shrieked at her sons and the men fired at it with ammunition that was obviously similar to Sacreds.

They weren't enough. The bullets bounced off its heavy armour and it roared again, leaping forward.

Chrno didn't even think. All he knew about these people was that they were dedicated to hunting his kind, but he was hardly like his own kind. He ducked his head and his tail stabbed over his shoulder, hamstringing the demon's rearmost right leg. The limb crumpled under it and it turned on the remaining five, roaring at him.

For reading, there was a grouping of overstuffed furniture in the room. Chrno tossed Rosette onto one of the couches, ignoring her yelp of pain and surprise, and lashed out as the demon leaped for him instead, his scythe-like claws cutting deep into its jaw and nearly tearing it free. The demon roared in pain, but it tried to close anyway. Chrno met it halfway, beating at it with his wings while his tail kept stabbing and his claws shashed. Out of the corner of one eyes, he saw the boys coming in, eyes bright with determination and bats raised.

"Stay back!" he shouted at them. A moment later, the men grabbed them up, running them out of danger while the woman kept screaming for help that Chrno could hear coming. Somehow he doubted they were coming to _his _rescue.

"Chrno!" Rosette shouted.

Chrno turned and heaved, throwing the demon as hard as he could over his shoulder and into the fireplace. The stone shattered, the mortar weaker than it looked, and the mezannine it had helped support started to come down with it.

"Aunt Jocelyn!"

"Mom!"

Chrno leaped, wings spreading. He caught the falling, hysterical woman and twisted, hitting the bookcases with his feet and kicking off again, twisting over to land on his feet on the floor and let her go. She stared up at him with panicked eyes, her face so much like Mary's if she'd lived another twenty years, and ran to join her sons and nephews as Chrno roared and leaped at the demon as it crawled free of the rubble.

He landed on its back, slicing down at it with his claws while it screamed and tried to buck him off or lash him with its tails. He had to end this fast. He didn't have endless resourses of astral without his horns and Rosette didn't have enough to spare for him. He could hear reinforcements coming and swept his tail around, driving the sharp point of it through one of the creature's eyes, into its brain, and out the other eye. It dropped.

Chrno yanked the tail free, gasping, and looked up at the family he'd ended up rescuing. They stared back at him with expressions he couldn't identify, though the boys were excited. Rosette was struggling up from the coach, her headdress tangling with her horns as she swore explosively.

"Aunt Jocelyn?"

Chrno looked up again. Only part of the mezannine had collapsed and now a woman stepped out onto the part still intact, looking down without any fear. Chrno didn't feel the same way, his breath catching and his heart nearly stopping as he looked up into the human face of Pandemonium.

"Chrno!" Rosette shouted, looking towards the doors and the voices now sounding on the other side. "Let's go!"

The demon obeyed. He ran back to her and scooped her up, holding her against his chest as he leaped off the ground and beat his wings, afraid to look back at the girl Pandemonium as he threw them both at the high windows, shattering through them and away into the night air, over the still assembled police at the main gate. He glowed as he bled astral for speed, just wanting to get away.

As he did, he saw another arc of light speeding away from another part of the manor, Genai flying away with something white in his arms, and didn't know how to feel about the other demon's success. Didn't know how to feel about anything, with one exception.

"Chrno," Rosette gasped, stroking his cheek with her good hand. "You found me."

"Of course I did," he murmured, turning his head to kiss her palm. "What would I be without you?"

"Bastards," she grumbled. "Tag-teamed me when I was down. I was that close to getting Aion too. Applesauce!"

Chrno smiled and just flew on to rendezvous with Shader, thinking only of how happy he was to be back with her, how content he was with that.

Anything else was just too frightening to contemplate.

**THE END**

_Yes, I have plans. Some of them might be evil._


	6. The Kindness of Monsters

_Lemon warning ahead._

_By the way, this is a probably unsuccessful attempt to write horror. If you freak easy, don't read it. If you're not sure if it's successful as horror and don't want to find out the hard way, read the comments and hopefully someone will post truthfully whether it scares or not. If you don't freak easy, I hope you like it._

_Final note, I'm using a new operating system and a new word processor. I haven't quite figured out how to get the spell check to work, so hopefully nothing is misspelled too badly. I'm not bad at spelling, but I am my own worst editor and I don't have a beta reader. Apologies if I miss something._

**THE KINDNESS OF MONSTERS**

by Hydraa

It was dark out, the buildings and trees outside his window made featureless by shadow. Remington sat at his desk in the darkness that existed inside the room as well, long after he should have finished for the day, and gagged. His stomach rolled madly, acting as though it was trying to climb up his esophagus, and the pain had spread from his back to his chest and arms now, stiffening his fingers and crawling down his legs as well.

Ewan picked up a handkerchief with shaking hands and held it to his mouth, shuddering. _Things_ were crawling down his spine, distorting his bones, and he lifted the already damp handkerchief to wipe sweat off his forehead. His hair was soaked with it, the blond strands hanging damp in his eyes.

The Legions inside him, implanted more than forty years before to keep him from dying from a fatal injury, were failing. No, that wasn't right. They weren't failing, they were thriving instead, and growing out of control like some sort of demonic cancer.

For decades, the balance had been maintained with a regular infusion of Astral to keep the Legions quiessant and under control, behaving as if they were normal human cells. Now that the Astral generator was destroyed though, the Legions were starving and, according to the warning of the one who first implanted them, feeding off of him instead.

Remington gagged again, no longer able to hide his illness as he'd been doing during the daylight. It was easier then, with everyone looking at him. He'd had to hide it, just as he always hid the scars and demon scales on his skin under his collar and shirt. Now he was alone though, in the dark, and the Legions felt so much stronger that he had to wonder if they fed off the darkness the same as they did him.

The priest shuddered again, wiping his mouth, and looked at the phone, just as he had been all day; all week in fact. There was no point in calling Shader. The cat demon was brilliant, but she just didn't understand how the Astral generator worked, and when it was destroyed in Remington's fight with Aion, she hadn't been able to rebuild it. Not yet, at any rate. Perhaps she could in six months or more, and Chrno could wait that long if he took it easy and drew Astral from both Rosette and Shader, but Remington wasn't a demon. Getting Astral from the two women wouldn't be enough to inhibit the Legions inside him and, very likely, taking any from them might lead to Chrno's death. In good conscience, Ewan couldn't take any action that would endanger the kind-hearted demon, not even if it would save his own life. So he said nothing, to prevent them from forcing the issue.

To _do_ nothing and effectively commit suicide wasn't something he could do either. Ewan gagged again and looked at the phone once more, thinking about morality and the value of his own life. He didn't want to die, he knew. God didn't put him on this world and let him live years beyond his normal span so that he could die now, not when he knew there was a way he could live.

It was arguably an unethical way though; at least he knew Sister Kate would have thought so. Or would she, he wondered sardonically as he remembered how she sacrificed her own life to make a contract with Chrno and give him the power to fight Aion. Then again, she couldn't have done anything less and remain true to herself. Remington sighed, the sigh turning into a racking cough. He didn't really know what Kate would have done and ultimately it didn't matter. He could only think of what _he_ would do.

Ewan opened the bottom door of his desk and pulled out a ratty old address book, many of the addresses faded with time and most no longer valid. The priest turned to one page near the back and peered at a phone number written in pencil, turning on the lamp so that he could see. He'd sworn in his guilt when it was given to him that he'd never use it, but he had no choice now, not if he wanted to live. God help him, he still did want to live so very much.

Ewan pulled the heavy phone to him and started dialing, his fingers shaking so badly that it was hard to get the numbers right. He managed it though and held the receiver to his ear, breathing through his mouth while he listened to the operator connect the call to the right line and it rang.

He'd almost given up waiting when it was finally answered. _"Hello?"_

"Patrick," he gasped. "I need your help."

_"Ewan?"_ came the startled response. _"Is that you?"_

"Yes. The Astral generator was destroyed. I need your help."

There was a pause. _"Is that the only reason you're calling me?"_

Ewan closed his eyes. "I'm sorry."

There was a snort. _"That's okay, boy. I can't say as I don't understand, stupid as it is. I'll be there in an hour."_

He was that close? Ewan had had no idea, though of course the number had been for somewhere in New York. That hadn't meant anything though, not given the technological genius of the man. He could have been on the other side of the world.

"Thank you, Patrick," he managed to say and heard the answering snort before he had to hang up the phone before he started coughing again. He was so relieved it almost made the sickness worse, but it didn't matter. He smiled, his hands trembling, his spine buckling, but his heart relieved.

For another day at least, he would live to serve his God.

--000--

The old man shuffled down the street, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his coat. Well past midnight, there was no one on the streets to see him pass, not in a neighbourhood with a monastery and convent that took up close to three city blocks, surrounded by a wall.

He didn't go in through the main gate, instead walking down the length of the wall and along the side, where the wall bisected half a block, leaving a stretch of near parkland in its place, though there were no benches or children's playground equipment set up there. More, a wrought iron fence stood to discourage passersby from entering. The only structure on it was a small cabin, smoke still rising from the chimney that thrust out of the roof like an offending finger. Or so the old man had always thought as he shuffled up to towards it, feet nearly silent on the grassy ground. He didn't worry about anyone hearing him though; only a demon would hear him, and then only a demon who wasn't distracted.

There were no lights on in the house as he looked in the window at the only bedroom. The two demons inside didn't need lights though, both of them adapted to see in the dark, and he smirked as he looked at the tall form lying with his wrists tied to the bedposts, shivering and whimpering as a sleek woman arched nude above him, her fingers massaging her breasts as she moved against him. Sweat glistened on both of them, smelling of sex.

The old man watched them with interest, his hands tucked under his long, bulky coat. He half wished he could be in that room with them, but he had no desire at all for a confrontation with Chrno the Broken Horn and Remington was waiting. Reluctantly, he turned and shuffled towards the small gate that would let him through the wall and onto the grounds of the Order. Pulling a key out of one of his pockets, he unlocked the gate and slipped through, being careful to lock it behind him.

The grounds were quiet, which was to be expected in the middle of the night. He kept an eye out for the night watch though, not wanting to try and explain himself. What he'd just seen was still in his mind as he walked, stirring his blood, so he detoured slightly in his journey to Remington's office, sidling up to the women's barracks on the way. Picking one of the ground floor windows that had been left open for the night air, he looked in to see a woman lying asleep in a bed against the far wall. She wasn't a young thing, but she was hardly old either, so he lunged in through the open window, grabbing her up and pulling her out of the room before she could scream, tucking her away underneath his coat. Then he paused, just listening, but no one had heard and he headed towards the administration building, satisfied.

Remington had either left the door unlocked for him or, more likely, they still left all of the buildings unlocked. The old man had always thought that was rather naive of demon hunters and still had a lot of his own things hidden throughout the grounds, none of which he expected the Order to find. That was fine with him as well; he had no need for them right now anyway and had brought the equipment he did.

He went upstairs to Sister Kate's office, now Remington's. The lights were off and he looked in to see his old friend had finally convinced himself to call him just in time.

Ewan Remington was slumped unconscious in his chair and over the desk, his spine distorted like some sort of mad hunchback. It had split the fabric of the clothing he'd been wearing and the old man looked at the vestigial forms that were trying to grow out from his body; eyes, mouths, clawed arms that tried to grab for him, and more. Many of the mouths were wailing, whisper quiet but desperate, screaming for freedom. They were struggling to shape the priest into something else, probably something horrible, and the man had no way to control them other than to essentially drown them in astral. Remington had never wanted to be anything other than human and was an early experiment; he couldn't communicate with the Legions that saturated him and the old man had no desire to do anything to him that he hadn't asked for first. Ewan had been a dear friend for a very long time indeed and while the old man didn't hold very much sacred, friendship was certainly at the top of that list.

He went up to his friend cautiously, not wanting to end up bitten by one of those reaching mouths, and checked for a pulse. Ewan's breathing was thready, but he was still alive, not that he would expect it to be Ewan who woke up from this if he didn't do something now.

The old man muttered an expletive and reached under his coat, bringing out a large, heavy, square box with dials and antennas on it. He set it carefully on the desk and brought out a collection of hoses and long, pointed needles.

He spent an uncomfortable half hour inserting the needles into Ewan's spine while the Legions tried to bite him and continued to grow, sending thick feelers like giant, bloated worms stretching out along the ground as though trying to escape. Done, he flipped the switch that would power the generator he'd brought.

Astral poured into Ewan's body and the Legions screamed, mouths gaping in horror as the energy swamped their burgeoning awareness, forcing them back into their default states. Clinically, the old man watched them start to shrink, vanishing back into the priest with supernatural speed, and turned to the man himself, feeling at his neck again for his strengthening pulse.

--000--

Remington woke to a horrendous stench and lay there for a dazed moment, not sure if the smell came from him or from something else. He blinked crusted eyes and a warm, damp cloth pressed to his eyes, wiping the crud away.

"Don't try to move just yet," he heard. "Give yourself a chance to settle."

Remington swallowed and shuddered, exhausted but feeling normal again, so normal he could have wept with relief. "Patrick?"

"Of course."

Despite the warning, Remington pushed himself up in his chair very slowly and looked at his benefactor, the light poor enough in the room that he could barely take in the wild white hair, the heavy lab coat that hung on him like a tent, and the familiar goggles that completely hide both eyes above the smiling mouth. The Elder beamed at him happily, his hands shoved into his pockets. It had been close to three years since Remington saw the man, not since he'd been banished from the Order for trying to molest Rosette.

"Never thought I'd see this place again," the Elder admitted, looking around. "Are you going to take better care of this generator if I leave it here?"

"Absolutely," Remington admitted. "Thank you for coming here. I owe you my life."

"Anything for a friend, and I think there's still a few I owe you." He clapped Remington on the back, his skin clammy and cool, and shuffled towards the door. "I should go, before someone sees me and gets frantic. "I'll see you, Ewan," he said in farewell and and shuffled out the door, almost seeming to take the stench Remington had woken to with him.

--000--

Chrno was lost in an exstacy of submission.

Rosette had given him the freedom to make his own decisions for himself, which was all well and good, but he was still a soldier demon in his soul and he wanted to be dominated, even needed it from time to time. He hadn't quite known how to express that, but Rosette had always known his mind and was rather bossy anyway.

She'd tied him at wrists and ankles to the bed, ordered him not to climax except on her command, and then proceeded to spend a great deal of time in torturing him.

She stroked and touched everywhere, dragging her silken hair across his skin and clawing at every sensitive spot on him. She used her mouth on him as well, kissing and licking him from his sensitive ears to his scrotum and everywhere in between. He was so hard it was almost painful, but still she hadn't taken him into herself, coating him and stroking him, but still leaving him to gasp and arch his back, wanting to rip himself free of his bonds but not wanting to defy her either.

Right now she leaned over him, her folds wet and warm against his length while she rubbed her breasts against his chest, sending shock waves through him. She was in his mind as well, stroking his psyche to near orgasm. She could kill him so easily that way, rip his consciousness apart to fertilize herself the way Pandemonium would have, but he trusted her not to and knowing that only made the pleasure greater, for both of them.

Rosette leaned her body against his shuddering one, smirking at the sight of his head thrown back against the pillows, his eyes squeezed shut and his mouth gaping open for breath, as well as the whimpering sounds he made. He sounded like he was in pain but she could feel how overcome with pleasure he was, just as she could feel how close she was herself. Much more though and he _would_ be in pain, which she certainly didn't want.

"Good boy," she whispered into his ear, kissing it gently while both hands reached down between them to take him in her hands. He jumped and wailed. "Good boy," she repeated. "So patient for his master."

Chrno's heavily slitted red eyes opened to look at her. "Yes," he breathed. "Anything for my master."

"My Chrno," she whispered and squeezed him, hearing him wail again before she moved him and pushed her hips down, drawing him deeply inside. The feel of him coming home at last made them both cry out and she straightened up, her thigh muscles flexing as she rode him furiously, rubbing her breasts for his pleasure and his. This wouldn't last long now; even with her orders on him she could tell he couldn't hold back much longer and she angled herself so her thrusts rubbed him against her most sensitive nerves, invigorating everything inside her as the exstacy grew, so close to the explosion she needed. She pinched her nipples and her senses strained, feeling every sensation of the lover below her, hearing every sound he made, every sound in the room and beyond.

Someone was outside the window, watching them. Rosette suddenly knew it with every demonic sense she'd been given, her horns burning at the feel of something evil; something that might threaten the beauty beneath her. She turned towards the window, instinct screaming to defend him. He was hers, body, mind, and soul, and she shifted to full demon form, golden wings spreading as Chrno howled at the feel of her changing around him, putting him on the edge of agony.

"Come," she ordered him.

He did so immediately, climaxing massively. The force of it drove Rosette over the edge as well and she bowed backwards, shrieking, wings tangling in the blanket. It lasted long moments, leaving her shuddering, and she turned back to the window the second it was over, ready to kill, only there was nothing there, the feeling of danger gone.

"Oh wow," Chrno breathed happily. "Oh wow oh wow oh wow."

Rosette looked suspiciously at the window for a moment more and then down at her lover and smiled. "What did you expect?" she asked smugly and leaned forward to untie him.

--000--

"What do you mean, she's been taken?"

Azmaria stood out of the way by the entrance to Sister Helen's room, twisting her hair under her headdress nervously. She'd been sent to fetch the Sister when she didn't show up for breakfast on time, only to find her room empty, the window open, and a lingering stench that made her stomach do flip-flops. Only a novice in the Order, she'd immediately gone to the first people she'd thought of who could help.

"A demon's taken her," Chrno said, waving a hand over a spot on the windowsill where the sill had corroded away. The spot stank terribly, almost overwhelming in the small room. "I've had way too much experience in recognizing demonic slime." He drew his hand back with an expression of disgust. "It smells like demon in here too. Something low class."

"It took her right off the grounds?" Rosette demanded, her fists on her hips. She looked incredulous. "We really have to get those wards back up again. This is stupid."

Chrno looked at her and shrugged.

"What's going on?"

Azmaria looked down the hall to see Father Remington walking towards her. He seemed tired, Azmaria thought as she gave a quick bow. "Sister Helen is missing," she told him. "I brought Layman Rosette and Chrno to look and he says that a demon took her." She wrung her hair harder, making her scalp hurt. "How do we find her?"

"A demon took her? Right from the Order?" Remington stepped into the room and stopped, his nose wrinkling. "That smell..."

"Reeks, doesn't it?" Rosette commented, running a hand through her own hair beneath her headdress. "Whatever it was, it drips something that kills whatever it touches and stinks really bad." She looked at Chrno. "Enough to track?" He looked dubious.

Remington looked around in silence, from the empty bed to the open window. He rubbed the back of his neck and finally looked at Azmaria. "Can you leave us?" he asked. "Please keep anyone from coming in here."

Azmaria bowed again, a little disappointed to be excluded, but too obedient to protest. "Yes, Father."

"Thank you."

Turning, she left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

--000--

Rosette and Chrno both looked at each other and waited for Remington to speak. It took a moment as he looked around again, shuffling his feet with seeming uncertainty. Even with the window open, the room stank badly enough that humans gagged at the smell of it. It was worse for Chrno. His sense of smell was excellent and this room with thick with old, rancid sex overlaid by demon. It was beyond vile.

"What kind of demon did this?" Remington asked at last, looking at Chrno.

He shrugged, honestly not sure. "I don't know. We don't exactly have a standard look." No two demons were the same and the lower ranks varied more than the elite he belonged to, taking on thousands of different forms. Chrno had never run into anything that left a stink like this, though there was something oddly familiar about it that he couldn't place.

"Any idea of why it took Sister Helen?"

"No." She wasn't even part of the militia. She was a teacher for the novices.

Rosette frowned at the open window. A rose bush grew outside, most of the leaves blackened and curling now where the same slime had dripped on them. The entire bush looked as though it would die. "Maybe it was just opportunistic. She had to be easy to grab."

Remington took a deep breath despite the stench, leaving Chrno wondering what the man was thinking. He knew something, and from the look Rosette shot him, she thought the same thing.

Finally, Remington seemed to come to a conclusion. "Come with me," he said and led them out.

The grounds were quiet as they crossed to the Administration building, the hymns of the practicing choir rising on the wind. The abduction wasn't common news yet and wouldn't be until they had a direction to focus in. Chrno didn't smell anything unusual while they were outside, but once they stepped into the administration building, he picked up the same scent he had in the room, though so faint now that even he could barely smell it.

"It was in here," he told them. Remington looked back at him, his face pale.

"It's not as strong here," Rosette noted. "I can hardly smell it at all."

"There's no slime," Chrno added as he looked around. The slime was where the bulk of the stench came from. It was still creepy though and he took the lead, following the faint scent down the hall and up the stairs, Rosette at his heels. Her sense of smell wasn't nearly as good as his was. Remington brought up the rear, still pale.

The scent led straight to Remington's office. Chrno pushed the door open and looked straight at the astral generator sitting on the desk. The sight of it, of all things, made his jaw drop.

"Where did you get that?" Rosette squealed, running past him to run her hands over it and grin at Chrno. "We'll be able to get you back to full strength in no time now!"

Remington stepped into the room and closed the door. Chrno watched him, not sure what to think. Remington needed Astral as much as he did, though no one else knew that except for Chrno and Shader. Not even Rosette did. He and Shader were only aware of it due to accident on his part and necessity on hers. Remington understandably didn't want it to be common knowledge that he was infused with Legions. He was still fully human, unlike Rosette, but a lot of people wouldn't understand that. A lot of them didn't understand Rosette being that way either. Chrno hadn't been sure what it would mean for Remington when the first Astral generator was destroyed, but the priest hadn't said anything or acted any different, so he'd dismissed his worries. Now though, the man looked almost sick.

"The Elder brought it here," he said at last, looking out the window. "I know the Order banished him, but I had no other choice. I hoped he'd have another one of the generators." He looked at them, his face lined with real concern. "Whatever took Sister Helen must be after him as well. It must have tracked him here when he brought me the generator." He ran a hand through his hair, mussing it terribly. "Did he know about it? I wish he'd said something! We could have helped him, banishment or not."

Chrno couldn't speak, his knees suddenly so weak he was afraid he'd fall down. Rosette stared at him with her hands up before her mouth, her eyes wide with equal horror. A memory flashed through Chrno's mind, one he'd thought he'd had the final nightmare about; one of being in a cluttered, stinking apartment in a suburb of New York, sick nearly out of his mind and throwing himself at the Elder, claws and tail tearing him to pieces. He'd murdered the man for his perversions and, bizarrely enough, found his way to God in his need for absolution afterward.

Ultimately, though, the Elder was dead and had been for years, and the only ones who knew were Chrno and Rosette.

Father Remington had never been told.

"The Elder?" he squeaked. "The Elder brought it?"

Remington nodded worriedly. "He did." He frowned. "Let me call him. I need to warn him about the demon." He dug a phone book out of his desk and dialed a number while Rosette edged over to Chrno.

"Are you alright?" she whispered. He shook his head. He didn't feel alright at all, all of the horror back, and she reached out to take his hand between her own.

"I'm not," he whispered back. "I killed him. I know I did."

"Might he have survived it?"

He stared at her. "I ripped him into a dozen pieces and then set the room on fire."

Remington was listening to the phone, leaning on the desk while he drummed his fingers on the surface. The drumming grew more anxious and finally he slammed the phone down, his face anxious and furious. "He's not answered. I want that phone number tracked. We're going after him before that thing kills both him and Sister Helen."

He stormed out the room, leaving the two demons behind for the moment as he shouted for the admin staff to track a number and for the militia to be assembled. Chrno looked at his master, biting his lip, and she threw her arms around him, hugging him tightly.

"It'll be jake, Chrno," she whispered. "I promise."

Chrno hugged her back, one hand sneaking up to the cross lying on his chest as he prayed that she was right.

--000--

The first level militia team had twenty people in it, twelve women and eight men. It was rare that all of them assembled at the same time though and nine climbed from the vehicles outside the house where the Elder had his phone. It was old and worn down, looking condemned as well with broken windows and trash piled around it.

Rosette stepped away from the militia as they geared up and inhaled deeply, getting a deep whiff of rat, garbage, feces, alleycat, and whatever sick smell it was that demon had. She started coughing.

"Are you okay?" her brother Joshua asked as he stepped up beside her, carrying his weapons.

"I'm fine," she told him, wiping her nose. "You be careful in there."

"I'm always careful. You're the one who goes crashing into everything, remember?"

Rosette smiled at him and started forward. Remington was already headed up the front steps to the main door, his huge astral sword in his hand. Chrno followed behind, carrying a pair of daggers in his hands, the hilts curved around to form a loop that encased his hand like a gun's trigger guard. On his back he carried the massive armoury box holding Rosette's spare weapons. She swallowed at the sight of him going into danger again, but said nothing. Considering the situation, she couldn't ask him to stay behind and he was their best authority on demons next to Shader. Taking the cat demon into danger was out of the question though. Rosette had tried that once; it ended up involving a lot of hysterical screaming and hairballs.

"Everyone spread out in your groups," she yelled to the militia. "You know what to do."

The nine of them split up into groups of three, one going around the side of the building while the others followed Remington, Rosette, and Chrno. Joshua and Azmaria were part of one of the trios and Rosette glared at them both, warning them to be careful. Both nodded in acknowledgement.

Remington reached the doors and held his sword carefully as he opened the left-hand one. It creaked loudly, but nothing leaped out and he pushed the door wide to show a dusty, cluttered foyer inside. Rosette adjusted her grip on her machine pistols and moved forward, making sure she got into the building ahead of Chrno, though she didn't quite get in ahead of Remington. Once inside, one team went up the old creaking steps while Joshua and Azmaria went with one of the Sisters to the right down a hallway, Azmaria looking back for only a moment as she carried her pack of ward crosses in both arms.

Rosette, Chrno, and Remington went to the left, going down another corridor that led into a sitting room bare of anything except for scattered garbage and a brightly coloured paisley sofa that stood out inconguously against the dirty, weathered floor.

"Someone's been here," Chrno murmured, running a hand along the top of the sofa. "This thing is new."

"I guess the Elder doesn't like housekeeping," Rosette said, looking at the garbage.

Chrno turned away. "He never did."

"Come on," Remington ordered, leading them through an archway into an attached dining room. It was totally bare, except for more piles of garbage in the corners. If it weren't for the sofa in the living room, Rosette would have thought the house was deserted. As it was, the place gave her a hearty dose of the creeps and she'd been a demon hunter since she was twelve years old. She kept her guns ready and looked at Chrno intently. He nodded in agreement.

"Do either of you smell that slime here?" Remington asked.

"Some," Chrno said, "but it's weak, like in the admin building. It's nothing like the nun's bedroom."

"There's none of that slime here," Rosette noted. "The demon's been here though."

Remington nodded and went into the next room. It was a kitchen, with a battered table that had a plate and fork sitting on it. A telephone hung on the wall. Rosette glanced around while the two men checked the cupboards and a noisy fridge, then went to open a cellar door in the corner, pointing her weapon down the stairs as she opened the door.

The scent of demon was immediate.

"It's here," she said and started down.

The steps down to the earthen floor of the cellar were old and creaky, the spaces between the slats filled with shadows even her demon eyes had trouble seeing into. The corners of the cellar were even worse and she squinted into them cautiously, crouching down on the bottom step with her weapons held outward.

Chrno turned on the light.

"Applesauce!" she shrieked. "Chrno!"

"Sorry!"

Remington managed a laugh. "You two are terrible." He walked past them, looking around at the empty basement and the rusty old furnace that sat near the far end.

Rosette straightened up, her heart still pounding. "Jerk," she told Chrno. He ducked his head sheepishly.

"Over here," Remington called quietly. He stood by the side of the furnace and when the two of them joined him, Rosette found herself staring at a hole in the back wall of the basement, one almost five feet tall and three across. Darkness filled it and it reeked of demons and death. All three of them stared at it for a long moment and then Rosette steeled herself and went forward, ducking through the hole with her weapons ready.

The two men followed her.

--000--

The team that went around the back of the old house found a dumpster filled with trash and cockroaches and a manhole that didn't quite sit correctly in its hole.

"What do you think?" Brother Richard asked, crouching down and touching it. He was responsible for their team's defence and had a pack heavy with ward crosses, as well as holy water and other tools. He was armed conventionally as well, but he held a cross as he looked at the other two.

"I think we go down," Sister Agatha sighed. She wore heavy armour and ammunition belts over both shoulders and looked intensely unhappy.

"Still afraid of tight spots?" Brother Daniel asked. She nodded shortly, her face a little pale even with the cover on. Daniel felt a little pale himself. For him, it was the rats he could hear down there that frightened him. Demons he could handle, but not rats. They were vile, diseased things that made his skin crawl.

"Let's get moving," Richard suggested and with Daniel's help, they lifted the cover off.

A madly grinning face, pale as a drowned corpse, leered up at them out of the darkness. Agatha screamed and the men dropped the cover with a horrendous crash, nearly crushing their toes in the process. The face, still grinning far wider than a face should have, its eyes glittering with insanity, seemed to float backwards and vanish into the darkness. The three militia members stared at each other.

It took them a very long time to get underground.

--000--

Upstairs, only one room had anything in it. A narrow bed stood in one of the bedrooms, with a wardrobe and ablution kit sitting on top of a wardrobe, along with a water pitcher and basin. The three men looked around carefully, checking everything as well as they'd been trained, but there was nothing else to find, at least physically.

"Do you hear something?" Brother Matthew asked.

Brothers Neil and William both paused, listening. There was something there, faint enough it might have been coming from outside, echoing in through the broken windows. Neil walked over to one of the walls though and pressed his ear against it, listening.

"There's giggling behind here," he said.

"Giggling?" William said. "Maybe there's some sort of secret passage."

The men searched, and the giggling never stopped, but they didn't find anything.

--000--

Azmaria looked around carefully as she followed Joshua and Sister Lucille into a den that had been emptied of books. She was armed and had been forced through years of training to be a good shot, but she'd never drawn her weapon on anything before, preferring her crosses and her faith. She could hunt demons without killing them and liked to think that she was becoming known for it. She knew Chrno was unique, but still, life was life, even demonic life. Imprisonment in the Order's prisons had to be better than death, even for a monster.

"There's nothing here," Joshua said. "What's in the next room?"

"Looks like another sitting room or a gallery," Lucille said, leading the way in. That room was empty as well, except for a floor to ceiling tapestry of a man riding a horse with a bunch of hounds. Azmaria looked at it, wondering at the amount of work that must have gone into something that large. Lucille and Joshua walking in front of it were dwarfed by the man, who wore red like some sort of British Lord.

"This is an unusual thing to have here," Lucille said, leaning forward to press her hand against it.

The tapestry moved. Azmaria gasped as she realized there was empty space behind it, and then the entire massively heavy thing swept to one side as though it were no more substantial than a lace curtain.

Something huge and thick, wide as a man's thigh and with a rounded end lashed out, spraying slime that burned the floor as it wrapped around Lucille's waist. She screamed, trying to get her weapon up, and was yanked off her feet, pulled into the darkness behind the tapestry.

"Lucille!" Joshua shouted, springing forward.

The tentacle lashed out again, Lucille gone, and this time came towards Azmaria, what looked like a weeping wound at the end of it bleeding the burning, stinking slime. It moved too fast for Joshua and his bullet fired past it and into the wall.

Azmaria started to sing with desperate strength, her hair sweeping back from an unknowable wind as white wings appeared on her back. She sang of God, of His love, of His kindness, and most of all of His protection. The tentacle cringed back just shy of her, writhing away from the light she cast, and Joshua started to sing as well, his song less beautiful but his own wings appearing. She would pay for hers with bad luck later and him with illness, but that was better than death now and so they both sang. The tentacle lashed back and forth, trying to snare either of them though focusing mostly on Azmaria, and finally sucked back into the darkness as the tapestry fell into place once again.

There was no time for hysteria, much as Azmaria wished she could just fall to her knees weeping. She wasn't that girl anymore and couldn't afford to be. She joined Joshua instead as he ran forward. The tapestry rustled as they pushed past it and then was still again, the horseman on it hunting endlessly with his dogs after something that was never seen.

**TO BE CONTINUED**

_This was getting kind of long, so I've broken it into at least two parts, if not more. It's taken on a bit of a life of its own, I think._

_Feed a starving writer. Send comments._


	7. Old Friends and Enemies

**OLD FRIENDS AND ENEMIES**

by Hydraa

The tunnel reeked of old sex and decay. A few feet behind Rosette, hunched over so that the ammo chest he carried on his back wouldn't bang against the ceiling, Chrno tried not to inhale. He wasn't terribly successful and his lips curled back from his teeth in disgust. The way was dark, the tunnel dug through bare, damp earth, and things he didn't want to identify squelched beneath his boots as he followed his lover, Remington following him in turn.

With everything in him, he didn't want to be here, but he couldn't stay away. A Sister of the Order was missing, presumably kidnapped by some kind of demon none of them were able to identify. They couldn't just forget about her.

It was the way they'd known to look for her here that he couldn't stop thinking about though. Remington had been dying as his Legions grew malignantly, no longer controllable with the astral generator destroyed. Desperate, he'd called in the Elder, thinking he was only disobeying the edict that the scientist no longer set foot on the grounds. He'd been banished after all, for sexual deviances that grew worse over the years to the point of attack. Remington had no way of knowing that the Elder was supposed to have been dead for more than two years. Chrno knew that, for he'd killed the old man himself, after learning accidentally that the Elder's deviances went much deeper than anyone suspected. Chrno had nearly been destroyed himself by guilt over that event, and still regretted it, but it was a fact. The Elder was dead, except, when Remington called him, he'd come, bringing with him a new astral generator that only he knew how to make, and he saved Remington's life.

And Sister Helen had been gone in the morning, with demon slime left in her room.

What had he left in that filthy old tenement? Chrno wondered with a shiver. He'd torn the Elder apart, that was obvious. He still had nightmares sometimes about the bloody chunks of him spread out across the floor of his apartment, soaking into the sick photographs that had been his death warrant. No human could come back from that, though a demon might. Still, that made no sense. Chrno had lived with the Elder for years, sleeping in his pantry while Rosette was in training with the Order, before she was turned into a demon to save her life. The Elder had never smelled of demon to Chrno in all that time. Rosette did; Chrno never told her, but the high class Legions inside her carried a scent to him, one he'd always revelled in. She'd smell the same way to any other demon they encountered. The way she was now, she was more than half demon, though still so fundamentally human that she still had a soul and holy items used against demons were far less effective on her. She'd never be a complete demon and they were both glad of it.

Behind him, Remington stumbled, his breath catching for a moment as he fought to keep his balance. Chrno's eyes narrowed. Remington didn't smell like a demon at all, despite the crude Legions that infused his tissues and bone. Chrno never would have known about them if he hadn't seen the man before when they were out of control. Rosette still didn't know he had them. But so far as Chrno was concerned, Remington was entirely human, with just a little splash extra.

So, he thought uncertainly, could the Elder have been like Remington? Somehow he doubted it. Whatever it was that came through Sister Helen's window, it was something different.

"It opens up ahead," Rosette whispered. They'd been making their way along a hand dug tunnel that was barely wide enough for them to pass, steadily heading downwards for several hundred feet. A moment later, she stepped out of the tunnel's end and Chrno followed her into a huge area that looked to be part of an old abandoned subway station. Even with demon eyes, Chrno would have had trouble seeing anything, but someone had strung hundreds of lights that lit the place almost like twilight. It was cold and empty, the ground strewn with old, wet garbage, and it stank.

"Why does this whole mission have to smell?" Rosette grumbled, holding her nose as she glared around. Chrno just shrugged. Widespread as the stench was, he couldn't track through it.

Remington seemed to guess that. "I'll check this side," he told them and strode off into the darkness, his sword glowing at his side. Chrno watched him go, unsure about splitting up so much, and then looked straight ahead, wondering if he should search that way himself.

"Don't even think of it," Rosette growled, grabbing one of the straps that held the box he carried. "I'm not letting you out of my sight." She then proceeded to drag him with her in the opposite direction.

"Don't you think we should warn Father Remington about the Elder?" he asked her in an undertone. The priest thought it was the _Elder_ who'd been tracked by a demon and that Sister Helen just got unlucky. He thought they were rescuing the old man as much as the nun.

Her grip tightened on the strap. "I can't think of any way to tell him that without him finding out what happened. I don't want him to know."

Chrno bit his lip. God had given him absolution for his sin, but he didn't know if Remington would. He didn't want the kind man to see him like just any other murderous demon. He nodded and followed after Rosette. A few moments later, they reached a stairwell leading down into a deeper section of the station and both of them stared at the skulls they saw scattered on the floor below.

---000---

Remington walked carefully but quickly though the old station, watching in all directions for danger. There were hundreds of tunnels under the city and he was neither claustrophobic nor afraid of the dark, but he didn't like it down here. It was cold and dank, perfect for a demon lair.

Or a scientist's lab, he thought a moment later as he came to a wide archway and looked into another room. It was very large, the ceiling reaching close to thirty feet above them, and the same sort of lights that had been used outside were strung up in here as well. On almost every foot of available floor space were tables and machinery, whirring and humming. There were microscopes and petri dishes on the tables, notebooks scattered everywhere, and machinery was dumped on every surface, as well asthe floor. It looked a thousand times more cluttered than Shader's lab and she was hardly neat.

In the centre of the room, his back to the door, an old man in a lab coat was writing in a notebook, whistling to himself contentedly under his breath.

Remington felt a great deal of tension that he'd been carrying for hours let go. Sister Helen was still in danger, but at least they got here in time to protect the Elder.

"Patrick?" he called.

The old man jumped with a yelp of surprise, his lab coat flying open for a moment before he turned, his hand pressed to his chest as he peered at his visitor. He still had the odd, opaque goggles he'd always worn. Other than looking older and more wrinkled, he was just as Remington remembered.

"Ewan?" the old man gasped, one hand gripping the edge of the table he leaned against as he clutched his chest. "You scared me to death! What are you doing here? How did you find me?"

Worried that he'd hurt the old man, Remington turned off his astral sword, tucking the hilt into the back of his belt as he hurried forward. The Elder let him lead him away from the table and over to a battered couch covered with paperwork and wires. Ewan quickly cleared him a seat and helped him sit down. The skin on his hand felt clammier than Ewan would have liked, but his colour was good. He smelled quite bad, but Ewan was used to the scientist forgetting to shower for days on end.

"I tracked your phone number and found a tunnel in the basement of your house that led down here," the priest told him and saw his frown. "I wouldn't have disturbed you, but the morning after you helped me, we found demon spoor on the grounds and one of the nuns was missing. We think a demon took her and is tracking you." He smiled. "It's good to see you safe."

The Elder grinned at him. "I'm jake," he said. "Or whatever term it is they use these days." He patted Ewan's hand. "It's good of you to come. You're a real friend to me."

"Always," Remington promised.

---000---

Joshua and Azmaria lost the demon they'd been tracking in the tunnels below the house. The passageway they'd found behind the tapestry led to an old spiral staircase made out of metal. It looked like a corkscrew dug into the cork of the earth and it rattled fearfully as they clattered down it. They expected another attack at any time, but the demon was gone by the time they reached the bottom, as was with Sister Lucille. Holding her crosses ready, Azmaria hurried after Joshua with his guns as he ran panting down the corridor they'd found. Already, his use of his powers was making him sick. She'd have to ostracise herself for a time as well, and engage in prayers and purifications to keep the bad luck she got after using her own from harming someone else. Those were the prices they paid for their gifts, since a world in balance didn't give something for nothing.

The passageway slanted downward, taking them under the house and probably away from it as well. Azmaria just prayed they would catch up in time, until they rounded a corner dimly lit by strung lights and found an intersection of corridors, all looking the same.

"Oh no," Joshua gasped. "It's a maze."

Azmaria felt a lump in her throat. "I read someone used chalk to find their way out of a maze," she babbled, "or bread crumbs."

Joshua looked back at her in exasperation. "We don't exactly have either," he pointed out.

Just then, Azmaria heard a giggle, coming from down one of the other corridors. Almost in the intersection, Joshua was in a better position to see what it was, and she saw his expression change to one of almost comical horror as he turned fully to face it and started to raise his gun.

A slim form leaped out of the corridor, tackling Joshua and sending his gun flying as he landed on his back on the wet floor, his breath woofing out of him as filthy water sprayed outward, soaking the bottom of Azmaria's dress.

She didn't notice, gaping for a moment in shock. It was a woman sitting straddled on Joshua, her hips pumping up and down on his even as she worked to his belt undone and start unbuttoning his trousers. After a moment of his own shock, Joshua started to fight her, howling. She just grinned a rictus grin, her long hair straggling filthily around her face. She was dressed in what must have once been a fashionable dress, though now it was tattered and black with sewage. She smelled and she had demonic horn ridges on her cheeks, like massive scabs.

"Get off!" Joshua shouted.

"I want some," she moaned. "Give me some." She managed to get her hands into his pants and Joshua bucked, his eyes bulging. "I want it," she said and her hands moved, bringing out a part of Joshua that Azmaria had never expected to see.

His wail of fright shocked her out of her paralysis. As the woman, or demon, or whatever she was started to adjust her clothing, still holding the frightened man, Azmaria ran forward and pressed her cross against the creature's face. Until that point, the woman had been ignoring her. The instant the six inch, gilded cross touched her skin though, she shrieked and threw herself back, her skin smoking.

Joshua scrambled to his feet, quickly buckling himself back up while he sobbed from reaction. "Are you alright?" Azmaria asked him, backing away at his side, the cross held outstretched. The woman cowered at the foot of the wall, holding her burned face while she hissed at them.

"No," Joshua gasped, but Azmaria didn't dare look at him. The woman's face was twisted with hate and only the cross held her back.

"More..."

The moan came from farther up the corridor the woman had come down. Up it, a dozen more women were stumbling towards them, arms reaching forward in desperate lust.

Joshua and Azmaria looked at each other, and without a word, they turned and ran.

---000---

Chrno and Rosette stared for a long moment at the bodies they could see on the lower subway floor. They were men, some skeletal, others still rotting as they lay there. Looking down at them, Rosette felt a sudden, terrible compassion. They wore ordinary clothes, nothing special, and none of them had anything near them that could be construed as a weapon.

"Those poor people," she whispered.

"They died in agony," Chrno murmured, using some sort of demonic sensitivity she still didn't share. He looked at her with horrified certainty. "They died the way Pandemonium's mates do."

She gaped at him. "You're kidding. What did this?"

He shook his head. "I don't know, but their souls have been sucked out of them and destroyed."

She shuddered at that, horrified at what it meant. No heaven, no salvation, no nothing. They were _gone_. Chrno started down the stairs ahead of her, leading the way with blades in either hand and her weapons box on his back. The lower floor was being used as a midden heap, garbage thrown everywhere as carelessly as the dead men had been. Chrno knelt down by the nearest body, holding his hand open over the corpse and closing his eyes. His hand glowed faintly pink. Rosette watched silently. It wasn't often that Chrno used magic. He was self-professed not to be very good at it and it used a lot of astral. He would always have to husband his reserves carefully. Sometimes though, it was the best way to get answers.

"They have Legions in them," he said at last, letting his hand drop back by his side again as he stood. "All low-class, all dead. Fortunately." He looked down at the shredded, filthy clothing. The man had been stripped from chest to knees. "His attacker raped him, tried to make him into a demon, or maybe to impregnate themselves, but just killed him in the process." He looked into the distance. "I hope."

"So the demon is female," Rosette concluded, stepping carefully over to his side with her weapons at the ready, "and it's trying to become another Pandemonium." The thought of some kind of egg-laying mother demon in the subways of New York was beyond horrifying. They had to find and kill it as fast as they could.

"I think so," he said slowly. "It can't though, not with such low-class Legions. It'll only kill its victims."

She glanced at him. "You keep talking about low-class and high-class Legions. What's the difference?"

Chrno scratched his chin. "Um, lemme think. My Legions are what's called high-class. They're smaller and finer, without any self-awareness. They can hold more astral and are more powerful. All the strongest, most human-looking demons we've encountered have been high-class. We're also rarer. Low-class Legions are larger and cruder; they also have varying degrees of self-awareness."

"What does that mean?"

"That means they're always fighting the demon for who's going to be in charge and will take advantage of any weakness. When I got sick before, my Legions did nothing. If they'd been low-class, I probably would have turned into something else, some other kind of demon. Probably even my shape would have been different."

Rosette stared at him in horror and Chrno leaned forward to kiss her gently on the lips. "It didn't happen," he whispered. "Anyway," he added, straightening, "low-class Legions will keep fighting, changing the form as a whole as control shifts. That's why a lot of those lesser demons we fought kept turning into something else right when we were winning."

"Yeah," she muttered. "I always hated that."

"So being a high-class demon means you have complete control over yourself. Essentially, you can be trusted. No low-class demon can be because they're always changing and they're too stupid to do more than hate."

He looked back at the bodies. "Anyway, low-class demons are too crude to make life. They're essentially neuter. Pandemonium never touched them."

Rosette holstered one weapon and put her hand on her hip. "So what you're saying is we've got a female demon here who's low-class but still trying to make with the babies. Still sucks for these guys."

"Yeah, it does."

A moan sounded from the other side of the floor. Immediately, both of them were hunched to the floor, balanced on the balls of their feet and ready to move in any direction. Rosette strained her eyes to see anything to shoot at, but saw nothing. With a glance at Chrno to tell him to stay behind her, she started forward, making her way through the bodies towards the back wall of the room.

A woman huddled there in the corner, her arms wrapped around herself as she rocked endlessly, staring at the floor. Rosette aimed her weapon at her, ready for everything, but then she holstered it and ran forward.

"Rosette!" Chrno shouted.

"It's Helen!" she shouted back.

Rosette dropped to one knee by the missing nun, reaching out to touch her shoulder. Helen shrank away and moaned again.

"Helen," Rosette whispered. "It's us. We've come to save you."

Slowly, Helen lifted her head to peer at her, her eyes filled with some kind of horror. "Rosette?" she whispered.

"That's right. We're here to rescue you."

Helen shook her head and her eyes filled with tears. "You're too late. Oh, God! Please, kill me!"

Rosette stared at her. "What?"

Helen looked past her, seeing Chrno standing a few feet away. Suddenly, her eyes glazed silver and she lunged past Rosette, hands outstretched, for Chrno.

Rosette's every emotion changed. In an instant, Helen went from a kidnapped friend in need of salvation to a _female_ after the male Rosette had long since claimed as her own. Her own Legions shifted her to demon in an instant and she caught Helen by the back of her dress, slamming her to the ground with one hand while she lifted the other, claws bared.

"ROSETTE!" Chrno shouted.

Rosette looked at him. His face was damp with sweat, but he met her gaze, his red eyes heavily slitted.

"It's not her fault, Rosette," Chrno told her. "I'd never let her have me. I'm yours, always yours. I'll have no one else." He let the weapons box drop to the ground with a heavy crash and unbuttoned his shirt, showing his lean, muscled chest. He held his arms open to her. "I belong to you."

Rosette didn't know how she moved, but suddenly she was in his arms, her palms flat against his bare skin and her head filled with his musky scent. His arms came around her. "I love you," he whispered.

Rosette shuddered, coming back to herself with the smell of him. "What happened?"

He hugged her. "Demons are possessive. I think she was about to do to me what was done to those men. You weren't ready to let her."

Rosette gaped at him. On the ground, Helen whined, staring at Chrno with huge eyes. She lunged again, coming off the ground at him, and his arm snapped out. He caught her around the throat and held her away from him, his other arm around Rosette.

"I said no," he told her.

"Oh God," Helen wailed, writhing. "I told you! Kill me!"

Rosette shook her head in bafflement. "What's going on?"

"I was wrong," Chrno said slowly, studying Helen. "It's not a female demon we're dealing with. It's a _male_ demon. A low-class male." He swallowed. "He's raping women and turning them into demons. They're then killing the men."

"But why?"

Helen shuddered. "I need it... It burns. I need it so badly." Tears flooded her eyes. "Please kill me, please."

"Her Legions are fighting her for control," Chrno said softly. "Humans have no way to resist that."

Rosette blinked. "But I have Legions."

"You have high-class Legions. They'll never fight you. That's why you can stay so human."

Rosette looked at Helen and stepped away from Chrno, putting her arms around the woman and drawing her away from the demon. Helen let her, but Rosette could feel how tense she was and it actually took a considerable amount of her demonic strength to hold her. Chrno let his arm drop and started to button his shirt again while Helen watched him hungrily.

"What happened to you?" Rosette asked her.

Helen started to cry again, shaking in her arms. "That horrible monster took me and brought me here, and he raped me. God help me, it felt so _good_. I'm damned, damned to Hell! The smell of men drives me mad. I want to force them like I was forced and I know they'll die if I do. But I ache!"

"You're not damned!" Rosette told her, though she felt sick. "All these bodies, they've been here a while. You haven't hurt anyone."

"I tried to hurt him," Helen whimpered, looking at Chrno.

"You can't hurt Chrno," Rosette said smugly. "We'll take you home and we'll cure you. You're human. Legions die in a human body unless they're made for it special. Right, Chrno?"

"Right. Legions won't last in a human unless they're replenished and we're going to kill your monster before it gets the chance." He extended a hand towards her, concentrating, and Helen panted, staring at it with her tongue against the top of her lip. Chrno blinked and looked at Rosette again, shaken. "They're not dying. They're like Remington's. They won't die!"

"Remington has Legions?" Rosette gaped.

Chrno winced. "That wasn't my secret to tell, but yes. He almost died years ago and the Elder used Legions to save his life. Only he changed them somehow, removed the fail-safe that prevents them from existing in a foreign environment."

"The Elder," Rosette growled, holding onto Helen so tightly that the woman whimpered. "How does Remington stay in control of them?"

"Regular infusions from the astral generator."

"Then that's what we'll do for you," Rosette told Helen cheerfully. "Chrno, go find Father Remington. We're getting out of here. We'll come back once Sister Helen is cared for." He nodded and ran for the stairs, leaving the weapons box behind.

Rosette stayed behind, holding onto Helen as the woman convulsively tried to follow him. They'd definitely come back. There was a demon to be dealt with and all of the dead men made her wonder just how many more infected women there were wandering around this place.

---000---

Azmaria and Joshua ran through the maze of tunnels, gasping for breath and lost. Every few turns, Joshua would turn and fire down the way they'd come, but it was dark and hard for him to tell if he'd hit anything, plus they were getting low on ammunition.

Behind them, women tumbled squealing and giggling down the corridor, slowed down only because they kept fighting each other. Azmaria had no idea what they would do to her, but it was obvious what they wanted with Joshua and he was still pale from the experience. It was probably his hand shaking that had made him miss them most of the time.

"Look!" she gasped suddenly, pointing forward. Ahead of them, the circular shape of a manhole cover could be seen against the ceiling, street lights shining faintly through the holes. Joshua ran for the ladder up to it, but Azmaria had a pretty good idea of how heavy those things were.

She stopped and knelt, slamming a heavy cross base down against the floor. The point dug in and it stuck there. A second one went into the wall to her left and a third to her right. Hoping they'd be enough since she wasn't tall enough to put one in the ceiling, she uttered the incantation that would activate them.

The three crosses glowed brightly, creating a wall of energy between them. A dozen slavering demon women ran into it and stopped, clawing at the light that held them back, and Azmaria looked nervously at the lines of strain it was already showing. Backing up a few paces, she knelt again and set up a second wall. That was all she had room for and she turned to pass Joshua, setting up a third and fourth wall on the other side of the ladder, just in case the women knew a way to get around.

Joshua was at the manhole, trying to push the cover up. "Help me," he gasped, and though she knew she wasn't even as strong as he was, Azmaria managed to get up the ladder beside him and started to push as well.

---000---

It was good to be back with the Elder again. The man had always been fun to talk to and really, Patrick was the only one who knew how old Ewan was, or how the long, strange turns of his life had been. It felt a little like being with family, seldom seen but always missed.

Patrick was showing him one of his latest inventions, some sort of box that could do mathematical calculations faster than the smartest man but was no larger than a suitcase. Ewan hadn't figured out what it was good for yet when Chrno ran in.

The young-seeming man, only obvious as a demon due to his purple hair, the points at the tips of his otherwise round ears, and his red eyes, stopped. Eyes that could be as round as any man's turned to slits and then went back to being round again.

"I thought you were dead," he said, to Ewan's deep surprise.

Patrick, who'd been gaping at the demon, closed his mouth. "I'm not. You weren't nearly as effective as you thought you were."

Chrno's fist clenched. "I know exactly how effective I was. You'd already infused yourself with Legions, hadn't you? That's why you lived."

Patrick's frown deepened. Ewan gaped between them both, feeling like he'd suddenly walked into the middle of a conversation where he had no idea what was going on. "Legions? Lived? What are you talking about? The Elder doesn't have any Legions."

Patrick smiled at him calmly. "Do you think in a million years that I'd ever try a treatment on you without testing it on myself first?"

Chrno took a step forward and Patrick turned back to him stiffly. "Going to try and finish what you started?"

Chrno hesitated and then seemed to shrink into himself. "No, I can't. I never forgave myself for attacking you. I'm so sorry."

A little of the tension flowed out of the Elder. "Apology accepted then, since I'm not dead. I guess if situations had been reversed, I would have done the same thing. I never hurt any of them though."

"What are you talking about?" Remington thundered.

Patrick grinned at his old friend impishly. "When you sent the boy to get the astral generator from me last time, he saw some pictures he disapproved of and ripped me apart. Lucky for me, my Legions pulled me back together. Good news for you as well, if the same happens to you. I wouldn't recommend it though."

Remington gaped at Chrno, horrified and half ready to draw his sword if he hadn't just seen the demon apologize, and remembered how horrified by _something_ the poor man had been after that episode. Ewan had had no idea _this_ had been why. Now the truth made him sick.

"God forgave me, Father," Chrno whispered. "Before anyone else, He forgave me."

Ewan shut his mouth, remembering Chrno in the church taking the sacraments as well. Even now he wore the ebony cross Kate had given him around his neck.

The three men stared at each other, one a demon, one a priest, and one no one was sure what. "Elder," Chrno said at last. "There's a demon here, one raping human women and turning them into monsters. We need to find it."

Patrick shrugged. "So Ewan here said. "You can stop looking at me. I don't rape women."

"You sure don't mind touching them or taking pictures they don't want."

"That's nothing but harmless fun and you know it."

Remington raised his hands before Chrno could flare up again. "Stop it, we don't need to fight each other. Patrick, have you seen any demons down here?"

"I think I'd have noticed. No."

"What about women?" Chrno asked.

"Women like to visit me," Patrick shrugged. "Nothing odd about them."

"What about women turned into succubi?" Chrno asked.

Remington gaped at him again. "What?"

"How do you stay in control of your Legions, Elder?" the demon pressed. "Whenever the Father is sick, his start mutating like giant growths. They want to take control. How do you keep yours from fighting you?"

"It's never been a problem," Patrick assured him.

Chrno looked dubious. For himself, Remington clearly remembered Patrick coming to his aide when he needed him. No demon would do that, excepting Chrno as the exception he'd always been. Even Shader wasn't reliable that way without her master's orders. "Have faith, Chrno. Please." Chrno looked at him and nodded.

"So," Patrick smirked, rubbing his hands together. "I haven't gone demon hunting in decades. I can almost believe there is one down here. This place is huge. Cheapest lab space I've ever seen though."

"Chrno?" Rosette called, appearing in the doorway with Helen in tow. "Did you find him?"

A moment after they appeared, it looked like all Hell had broken loose.

---000---

They were breaking through the walls, forcing them down through sheer weight of numbers. Like Azmaria had feared, some had found their way around through the tunnels and were coming at the wall on the other side as well. One wall was down and the women were clawing madly at the remaining three, drooling and screaming their desire.

"Joshua!" she wailed, not knowing what she was trying to say. They were both pushing as hard as they could, tendons standing out on their necks, and the cover was moving, but neither of them could push it up far enough to get it out of its groove and let them out.

"Don't give up," he gasped.

Suddenly, the manhole cover lifted away on one end, screaming out of the hole. As if in counterpoint, the last wall on one side gave way and the women stumbled forward, keening and rubbing themselves. Azmaria and Joshua looked up, afraid to see more of the women above, but it was Brothers Matthew, Neil, William, Richard, and Daniel, along with Sister Agatha. Seeing the men, the women howled, scrabbling up the ladder towards the two people on it.

"Come on!" Neil shouted and hands grabbed them, pulling Azmaria and Joshua to the surface. Daniel and Matthew tried to push the cover back over, but the women were already crawling out and Neil howled in horror as one of them grabbed his leg, pulling him over, and started to try and rip his trousers off. A moment later, one of Agatha's bullets silenced her.

Neil scrambled away and the militia members opened fire, pouring Sacreds into the possessed women. Azmaria watched, sobbing, for the women kept crawling out, even as they were shot, pushing each other's bodies out of their ways as they hurried to their deaths. Finally she had to turn and press her face against Joshua's chest, not able to look anymore.

---000---

The Elder saw Rosette and Chrno realized what had happened to him. When Chrno tore him apart and his Legions put him back together again, for whatever reason, they'd only taken control in a certain situation. The Elder himself probably wasn't even aware of it, though if he was, he deserved an eternity in Hell for it.

Chrno and Remington were safe, and would probably always _be_ safe, just as they always had. After all, there was only a certain breed of human that the Elder didn't think deserved to be treated with respect.

The Elder saw the two women standing in the doorway and went mad. His eyes glazed, his mouth dropping open loosely, and his arms hung at his sides. His lab coat however flew open, and Chrno saw a flash of a warp space in place of his loins, an interdimensional rip created by a demon's power. A woman hung in there, her habit and nun's dress torn, something huge and pulsing thrust up between her legs. Both Remington and Chrno gaped in shock, recognizing Sister Lucille as she tumbled limply out and the thing that had been raping her lashed forward.

The two men jumped back instinctively, flesh thicker then either of them racing past, spraying slime everywhere as it did. "ROSETTE!" Chrno screamed. She already had her weapons out, firing but having to let go of Helen as she did so. Incredibly, the woman ran forward, wailing in desire and despair. The tentacle – penis – Chrno didn't want to know what it was – jerked back, wounded, and then came forward again, the closed lids at the end of it opening and sending forth dozens of smaller tentacles just like it. They wrapped around Helen, forcing themselves into every opening she had, and she screamed even as she relaxed.

"Rosette!" Chrno shouted again. She just stood there, staring at the slime that had sprayed onto her bare arm above her glove.

"I feel warm," she murmured.

No wonder the Elder didn't think he was raping anyone if they were drugged into enjoying it. Chrno growled, going to demon as he turned on the old man. Remington was already there, grabbing the man and shaking him, screaming for him to stop it. The Elder ignored him, his face still slack, and Remington yanked off the goggles he was always wearing.

Both men froze. The Elder didn't have two eyes. He had a dozen tiny eyeballs squeezed into each eye socket, staring out wetly at the world. How long? Chrno wondered sickly. How long had he been like that? He'd never seen the man without the goggles on.

"You're not Chrno!" Rosette shouted suddenly. Chrno turned again, frantic for her, to see that while the Elder was mostly engaged with Helen, one of his tentacles – Chrno refused to call it anything else – had swayed over and tried to work its way under Rosette's dress. Her face still flushed with the drug, she grabbed it and yanked with all her strength, ripping it right out at the root.

The Elder reacted just like Chrno would have if Rosette had done that to him. He screamed, high-pitched and agonized, and retreated, leaping fifteen feet backwards in an instant. Helen was still in the grasp of the rest of his tentacles though, the great length of him wrapped around her limp body, and Chrno barely managed to grab her before she was dragged past him. Even so, the tentacle almost pulled her out of his grasp anyway. She stared up at him silently, only her eyes able to plead for salvation.

Remington brought it. He swung his great sword around, the blade appearing in a flash of astral, and chopped the last six feet of the Elder's member off. There was another horrible scream and it whipped away into the darkness on the far side of the lab before it was gone. The part wrapped around Helen vaporized to dust, the Legions self-destructing. Together, both men lowered her to the ground next to Lucille.

Rosette came up to Chrno's side and he quickly stood to hold her. "Hi, gorgeous," she slurred, grinning. "What say we have some fun?"

"Right," Remington sighed, standing beside them. Rosette barely acknowledged him, but to Chrno, he looked to have aged fifty years. "We got them back at least."

"Did we win?" Chrno asked while Rosette started to kiss his neck. He wasn't sure whether to be unnerved or aroused, though arousal was winning.

Remington turned away. "I have no idea," he said. "Get them out of here." Turning, he ran into the darkness after the Elder.

---000---

There was a corridor on the other side of the lab, hidden in the shadows. Remington ran down it, hurdling old crates and slipping on the ichor that Patrick had left behind. His mind reeled at what just happened. Patrick was a demon, he'd raped women, he'd gone insane. He had Legions. He was a demon!

Only if he was a demon, then what was Remington? Patrick had dozens of little wet eyes and a nightmare under his coat to show his status, but Remington had lines over his body and a spine that had a chitinous exoskeletal shield to show the same. Neither of them were fully human and Ewan certainly couldn't control his Legions. How could he expect the Elder to do the same?

He ran into a chamber at the other end of the corridor, his astral sword lighting his way and half expecting a huge battle with his oldest friend. Instead he found Patrick huddled in a corner, tears of agony streaking his face as he clutched the wounded part of himself. He looked up at Ewan as he came in and there was no fight left in him.

Would there be if a woman walked into the room? Ewan wondered.

"You crippled me," Patrick gasped. "How could you do that?"

Ewan went to kneel by his side, the sword held low but still ready, just in case. "I didn't have any choice. I think, after you've had some treatments, you'll be able to see why." He hoped so, in fact he prayed so. Patrick would never walk free again though, Ewan already knew that, but he couldn't find it in himself to kill him, not even now.

"Come on," he said. "Come with me."

---000---

"What happened to Sisters Helen and Lucille?" Joshua coughed, sitting up in bed with a dozen hankies and books on the covers around him.

Seated by his bed, Rosette sighed. "Well, we found the plans to the astral machine in the lab, so we can keep their Legions under control, but just to be safe, they've both been sent to a strict convent. No men allowed. They'll be okay, I guess. If you can ever get over something like that."

"What about you?" her brother asked. "I hear you got dunked with that slime stuff too."

"Yeah, but I never got – you know." She grinned at Chrno. "And I have other ways to work off the effects."

Chrno blushed.

"I heard the Elder is here," Joshua said to change the subject, blushing himself. "He's in the demon jails?"

"Yeah, and he's not getting out of there if I have any say in it." She looked determined.

"I wonder if it's really his fault," Chrno said slowly. The siblings stared at him. "I mean, he took on the Legions with the best of intentions. He just wanted to make sure he wasn't about to kill Father Remington. That's very noble."

"Yeah, well there's all sorts of things they say about Hell and good intentions," Rosette sniffed. "I doubt those things were in control while he lived here and he still grabbed my ass. The potential was always inside him."

"I guess," Chrno mourned. "I guess it's there in all of us."

"No it's not," she snapped. "He wanted to be that way. You know all about that, Mr I'm-a-good-demon."

Chrno flushed again and ducked his head. "Right. Good point."

"I should hope so," she sniffed. She looked at her brother appraisingly. "How much longer do you think you're going to be sick?"

He shrugged. "A few more days? I'm feeling a lot better."

"Good." When he was deemed healthy again, Azmaria would be allowed out of seclusion. Rosette smiled at him. "It'll be good to have everyone back together again. We can go to the lake for a picnic." Both men perked up at the thought. Chrno especially hadn't been there since before his collapse. It was done, Rosette decided. They'd been through a lot and they deserved a break. No more demons for a while, not until her trigger finger started to get itchy again.

Until then, it was time for a vacation.

**THE END**


End file.
